


I'd love you if you'd let me & other secrets

by mochimatcha



Series: We’ll grow sunflowers & other promises [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Development, Coming Out, Crushes to Love, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Secret mutual pining, angsty kageyama but hinata is there for him, easily overwhelmed Hinata, hurt comfort fluff and humor, secretly soft kageyama, this is more or less just two giant simultaneous character studies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25054999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochimatcha/pseuds/mochimatcha
Summary: Somewhere along the way of learning all kinds of things about Kageyama the person, rather than just Kageyama the volleyball player, Hinata's problematic crush had grown from something simple into something much deeper and all consuming. The more he tried to stuff the feelings down, the more unbearable they got. The more he tried to rid himself of the feelings, the more prominent they became.It was one thing to want Kageyama to see him as a real, true friend. He had gotten his wish. Kageyama was more open towards him than he had ever been.It was another thing to want Kageyama to need him as a person, to want to stand beside him as an equal, a partner in all things.It was the one thing he thought about most often. Maybe even more than volleyball.Somewhere along the way, Hinata had become completely, irreparably, hopelessly in love with Kageyama Tobio - his best friend.He was totally fucked.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Series: We’ll grow sunflowers & other promises [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861495
Comments: 352
Kudos: 642





	1. Secret

**Author's Note:**

> I'm several years late to volleyball anime. This is self-indulgent but I hope someone out there likes it... I'm gonna give me everything that I want <3 Hope you enjoy.

\- ♠️ -

Secret

"Ouch! You _pinched_ me! That's so rude!"

Hinata's shrill squawk was met by a dry and measured look from Kageyama, facial features etched into his default trademark scowl. The air was crisp with the onset of an October chill on the horizon, but sitting outside in the sun for lunch between classes, Hinata oddly felt like he was overheating. His eyes darted to the ground where his half eaten pork bun now lay in the dirt.

"My _lunch!_ What have you _done!_ " Hinata wailed pitifully, but he at least had the pleasure to note that Kageyama looked maybe at _least_ a tad bit guilty as they both eyed the forlorn bun laying alone on the ground, one side caked in dirt.

"Don't sit so close to me, dumbass," was all Kageyama offered in reply. Hinata leaned forward to pick the pork bun off of the ground, pointedly ignoring Kageyama as he made a clicking sound with his tongue. "Do not tell me you are going to just brush that off and--"

Hinata made a point to wipe the dirt off in Kageyama's general direction, which earned him a satisfying "eughh, Hinata, you little shit--!" for his trouble. An eruption of "what the hell is wrong with you--" was interrupted by Hinata loudly declaring that Kageyama was the absolute _worst_ , before stuffing the bun back into his mouth. Hinata met Kageyama's disgusted expression with a grin filled with half chewed food, stuffing the contents into one cheek so he could at least speak around it.

"I just wanted to show you - look!" He shoved his phone in front of Kageyama's face. "I helped my mom make cookies last night. They look tasty, right? I would have brought you some but I ate them on the way here. But there's more at home…” He waggled his eyebrows mischievously. “You should come over to try them!"

It was an attempt at setting bait. 

As it stood, through the whole duration of their first year, Kageyama had never once agreed to hang out at Hinata's house. In fact, the only times where they hung out outside of school or volleyball club, was, well-- never. Their hangout times outside of the school grounds always included studying, or practicing tosses, or grabbing food with the whole team, but time spent alone was few and far between. Of course, Hinata loved hanging out with the whole team (his friends!), of course he did. Hinata had always been an extrovert, thriving in groups and making friends everywhere he went. But... Kageyama, on the other hand, was far more reserved and preferred to do things on his own and avoid others where he could. If confronted on it, he would have made a comment on how irritating it was to constantly have teammates interfering with his oh-so-precious personal free time - but he still went out for the team meals and would stick around until the group naturally dispersed. Hinata had developed a sneaking suspicion that maybe he secretly did enjoy hanging out with everyone, and being part of a group. It had been a long year of growth for him to open up to his teammates, and Hinata as well. Hinata could admittedly acknowledge about himself that at times he could be a little... well, dense, but at least he was observant enough to recognize how monumental that growth had been. To think, the two of them had even despised each other in the beginning.

_My greatest rival is now my greatest ally - my partner. My best friend. I wonder if there's anyone else who knows him better than I do._

Hinata had countered Kageyama's aloofish tendencies by inserting himself into his friend's life wherever possible. The two would always walk home together after school, which was something at least, which Kageyama would point out whenever Hinata breached the subject of them not spending enough time together. 

"I see you literally every day. What more do you want?" He'd scoff, and for all of Hinata's brash, foot-in-mouth nature, he couldn't find it in himself to mention that he really just wanted to hang out... well, just the two of them.

_Very badly_.

He didn't even really understand why himself, or why he was so passionate about it. He just wanted to be around Kageyama more. Although he'd never admit it out loud in lieu of their strong rivalry, Hinata found Kageyama fascinating, and just overall... amazing, as a person. Not that he would ever, _ever_ admit that to his face, but in the privacy of his own mind, Hinata could think about how cool Kageyama was all he wanted. His sets, his coordination, the fact that he just knew exactly what to do in volleyball - it always kept Hinata on his toes, encouraging him to strive always to be better. Kageyama had invested time and trust into him, and Hinata would constantly fight to contend himself as Kageyama's equal. He was so driven and collected. For all of their clashing traits, Hinata thought that Kageyama was just... he was just _good_. Not that Kageyama would ever know, because Hinata would be taking these thoughts with him to his grave.

They ate lunch together most days, but that occurred in the school courtyard which, in accordance to prior criteria of what counted as hanging out unrelated to school or sports, _didn't count_. Kageyama never wanted to hang out just for the sake of it. Hinata had been to Kageyama's house one time, just to study, and they had stayed exclusively in the dining room, separated from the living room only by a sofa. They stayed seated at a large table that was in pristine condition, as if it were never otherwise used, but it had enough chairs sitting perfectly parallel at every edge that Hinata thought that it made the room seem very large and very empty. Hinata had wanted to explore Kageyama's room - he had always wondered what it looked like in there, but when Hinata mentioned this, Kageyama just scowled at him and then chided him for getting distracted too easily. Such a scolding did not do much to deter Hinata's wandering imagination, however. Kageyama was always so poised and had an air of regality around him, but what was his living space actually like? Did he keep his room tidy, or were there clothes strewn everywhere? Was there a corner on his desk reserved for dirty dishes and a garbage can overflowing with snack wrappers? Did he have posters up on the walls? Hinata had looked casually around Kageyama's living room - it was spotlessly clean with fancy, abstract paintings up on the walls. Hinata privately thought that his baby sister Natsu could draw better, but he had to admit, it would probably be considered 'classy' to some fancy-pantsed person who wore a _fancy_ suit everywhere and worked in a _fancy_ office on the top floor of a skyscraper. Even Kageyama's _house_ was regal, fit for a king, if a king would see it fit to be living in a moderately sized and otherwise kind of boring house in rural Japan. For some reason, Kageyama had never allowed him to come back, and Hinata wondered if he had done something rude or inappropriate, as he had been so sure he'd been on his best behaviour.

Kageyama's response this time to Hinata's (self proclaimed) brilliant cookie bait was a sneer. "You still bake with your mom? What are you, five?"

Hinata recognized Kageyama's smug look as he set his counter bait to egging him into an unrelated argument, which normally he would not have minded the engagement - arguing with Kageyama was admittedly quite fun, and Hinata liked to think that Kageyama enjoyed it too, but maybe that was giving him too much credit. But unlike many times prior, he maintained the resolve that he would not be so easily deterred. "Come on! They're actually really good, I promise. Although I may have accidentally spilled a lot of salt into the batter. They're... really salty. But they're good apart from that, I swear!"

In Hinata's own most _humblest_ of opinions, it seemed like the best scheme he could have ever come up with, excluding the fact that he wasn't exactly selling the appeal very well with the salt comment. But if _he_ had been offered cookies made by _Kageyama_ , offered up _just for him_ , then oh boy, what he wouldn't have given to-- _well._ It was besides the point.

Kageyama paused for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face as he noisily sipped air through the straw of his empty milk container. At least, it was a scowl that was less venomous than usual. _Contemplative_ , Hinata could identify confidently (and also while feeling quite proud of his word choice, 'contemplative', now _that_ was a fancy word that some fancy-pants in a suit would use!) after one and a half years into their friendship, the two of them now well into their second year of school.

"You know what? Fine."

Hinata balked, unable to believe his good fortune. "Really?" 

"No."

Hinata felt his grin slipping off of his own face to be replaced by a pout. Good fortune was indeed a myth. But then again, the devilish smile Kageyama flashed him was an acceptable trade off, Hinata decided. Smiles were rare, even if Kageyama tended to look very... scary when he smiled.

"Kageyama!" Hinata whined. "You're so _mean!_ "

"You're annoying."

"Well... you're annoying-er!"

"Anyways, it's time to go," Kageyama said, standing up and tossing the empty and now crushed milk carton into Hinata's lap because Kageyama could not go fifteen seconds without being an ass. Sauntering off towards the gym to practice volleyball for the rest of the lunch period, he stopped momentarily to leave the final blow in his wake - "oh, and it's 'more annoying', you idiot" - before leaving Hinata to yowl behind him in protest.

\- ♠️ -

It wasn't that Kageyama was _totally_ closed off or anything. He was just chronically grouchy and had a flaring temper, not to mention he didn't express himself well at _all_. However, that didn't mean that Kageyama was devoid of the rarer softer moments. Hinata prided himself as being one of the few people in the world who got to experience them, even if to an outside perspective, they might not seem so soft at all, although Hinata treasured them greatly. Moments like the self-satisfied, smug grin Kageyama would make to himself upon sending off a really great serve, or the rough way he'd try to compliment his teammates when he was in a particularly good mood, stammered out, non complex and awkward, but endearing just the same. There were even gentler moments still, like when Kageyama would ruffle Hinata's hair after a particularly good play and his eyebrows would finally relax out of their downward position for once (a rare sight to behold) and he'd flash what could almost have been confused for something akin a grin, even if it looked more like a grimace. Hinata could still fondly remember the first time Kageyama had ruffled his hair, and how mortified Kageyama had looked when Hinata had bragged about it to the rest of the team, as if he had done it without really thinking about it. Hinata hadn't expected how good, how special it would feel to be praised by Kageyama when such gestures were so often few and far between. It made his stomach do weird flips. From that point on, whenever he would complete a play that he'd deem particularly spectacular, he'd plant himself in front of Kageyama with an expectant look on his face, puppy dog eyes begging for praise. Usually this just resulted in receiving an insult and a surprisingly gentle smack on the back of the head, but on a good day, he might have found himself lucky enough to receive a stammered "g-good job" and a head pat. Even better yet, there were the times when Kageyama sometimes would buy a pork bun on the way to school (just for him!) before they met up at their usual spot to walk to school together. Once he even shared his bento with Hinata that one time he forgot his lunch with the excuse of, "it's so you don't under perform and drag us all down during practice", followed by a pause, and then "dumbass" tacked on for good measure.

He was a little bit closed off, maybe. Just a little bit, but Hinata could still pride himself on being the closest person in the world, probably, to Kageyama. 

Hinata had thought that he'd known Kageyama pretty well. That was, until that day where Kageyama had so rudely pinched him hard enough that the invisible force of Kageyama's pent up rage struck his beloved pork bun to the ground. They'd been practicing after school later that same day in the gym as usual... but then Yachi had suddenly appeared with the declaration that Kageyama's _father_ was on the phone, he had called the school for some reason? And it suddenly occurred to Hinata that, _oh! Kageyama has a dad. Well, duh, of course he has a dad, right?_ But Hinata had never even bothered to ask Kageyama about his family, not to mention that he literally had not seen anyone else home at Kageyama's house that one time he actually got to go there, so where had this so-called _dad_ been hiding this whole time!? Hinata had been about to blurt out something stupid that would likely have resulted in Tsukishima berating him for his magnificent lack of tact or intellect, something maybe along the lines of, "what! Since when do you have a _dad_ _?_ "

...But the words died in his throat upon seeing Kageyama's face, contorted in an expression that Hinata found he could not identify. He had never seen Kageyama make a face like that before. It was an entirely new expression, and if Hinata had to make an uneducated guess, he might have dubbed this new face as the result of someone having killed his dog. But Hinata could also assure with a degree of accuracy of about seventy-eight percent, that Kageyama did not, in fact, have a dog, so such a sentiment would be null and void anyways. The volleyball which had been on a direct course to Kageyama to be set off to who-knows-where was promptly forgotten until it landed unceremoniously on Kageyama's head and bounced off with a loud clunk. What really cemented that this occurrence was freakishly weird was that Kageyama didn’t even react, didn’t swear, didn’t get angry - he had been standing frozen on the court with his hands poised and ready, face turned towards Yachi, staring at her like he was willing the words to somehow stuff themselves back into her mouth and disappear forever. Slowly, his arms fell back down to his sides, and he stiffly walked to the bench, grabbed his bag and all his belongings, and left the gym without a word. Hinata stared after him, Kageyama's horrible expression etched into his brain, and he decided from that point on he never wanted to see a face like that on Kageyama again. Looking around the gym, Hinata could see the question plain on everyone else's face;

_What was that all about?_

\- ♠️ -

Kageyama had swiftly changed the subject when Hinata had texted him about _the incident_ after getting home, having walked with his bike up the mountain all alone, oddly contemplative for once in his life. It was Kageyama's insistence that they drop the subject when Hinata kept pressing for details about what his dad wanted or why Kageyama had left so abruptly, that Hinata had the stark realization that there might have actually been a startling number or things that he didn't know about Kageyama. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the Kageyama he knew was exclusive only to one highly specific environment; the Kageyama he knew who existed at school and on the court. He had no idea what Kageyama's family life was like, what his relationship with his parents was, if he had friends outside of school, if he had any other hobbies... Hinata felt guilty realizing he had never actually even _asked_. It hadn't even ever really occurred to him to do so. He had just assumed that volleyball more or less dominated Kageyama's whole life like it did his own. But then again, that wasn't entirely true, was it? Hinata had his own life outside of volleyball, a mother and a sister he loved, friends from his old school that he kept in contact with and would play Super Smash Brothers with, he liked listening to music when he was jogging, he collected volleyball training cards and signatures and kept them in a collector's binder behind thin laminated sheet coverings - there were lots of things that he did outside of volleyball. Hinata didn't exactly hide his hobbies and was glad to talk about them with Kageyama, but Kageyama himself never really contributed anything from his own life to the conversation. A terrible feeling of self-doubt suddenly wormed its way through Hinata's chest as he realized that, while he considered Kageyama to be one of his closest, if not _the_ closest friend he had, that Kageyama might not even feel the same way (although he partially loathed to admit it because augh, ew, how could stinky mean Kageyama have managed to sneak up and snag that title anyways?). It would certainly explain why he was always declining to come to his house after school. If Kageyama considered him more or less a-- a _stranger_ , outside of the context of volleyball, it was no wonder he wasn't ready for a step like that. The revelation made Hinata feel sick.

When Hinata had next seen Kageyama at school, he'd seemed... off. But he wouldn't talk about it, and maybe Hinata was only able to notice because he'd been fixated on him a lot since the day before. Hinata didn't normally spend so much time wondering what Kageyama was doing, or what he was thinking at any given moment, but now that he'd started, he couldn't stop. He hadn't known how to comfort Kageyama at all. Maybe he hadn't needed it, but Hinata had still tried.

He had attempted to give Kageyama a hug.

This went about as expected. Kageyama looked like he had been stewing at lunch, but then again, he always looked like he was stewing about something. So Hinata put down his lunch, leaned over and wrapped his arms around his torso.

Kageyama had frozen in place for a moment, looked down at Hinata's arms, back up at Hinata's face, and then yanked away, shoving Hinata off of him and onto the ground.

"What the shit!" Kageyama yelled, standing up abruptly, towering over Hinata. "What did I say about touching!?"

Hinata pointed at him, shuffling back to his feet. "You're sad!" 

Kageyama laughed as he began to turn away, a sour sounding thing. "Sad? You think I'm _sad_ _?_ You-- you don't know what you're talking about."

"You're sulking! You have been since your dad called."

Kageyama rounded on him. "You don't know anything!"

"Ugh! You're so obnoxious. I just wanted to help! Fine, be that way!" Hinata snapped back.

It had been too much, too soon.

Kageyama had managed to open up and invest his effort and trust into the team - but that was on the court. He was still too stuffed up in his personal relationships, it occurred to Hinata that maybe he himself hadn't been investing the necessary effort either. They had hit a plateau. A strong desire was beginning to bloom in him, comparable even to his passion for volleyball, and that was saying a lot.

_I really, really want to know you._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm finally uploading this.
> 
> I'll post the first three chapters in one go and then the rest will follow in the next few days - maybe I'll upload every other day? Depends on how fast I edit, because that's all that's left to do - it's all pre-written except for the epilogue. Rating will go up later. I hope this will be the kind of story you can go back and reread later to pick up all of the little hints and foreshadowing.
> 
> I’m my own editor so sorry for any syntax errors. Also, sorry if there's any errors with itallics, I don't know why but pasting in my text made it sort of bug out? Don't know what's going on there, it was fine in my writing app. :| I’ve also only seen the first season of the anime and half of the second - I’ve researched the timeline a little but there might be inconsistencies. Hinata's internal perspective is way more put together than the things he says and thinks, lmao. I also might have messed up the Japanese schooling system with their ages, if so then I humbly ask that you just go with it ;__;


	2. Suspicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata tries to investigate.

\- ♠️ -

Suspicious

Hinata hated the walls. Walls in volleyball that blocked him in, walls between friends that kept him out. He longed to take the steps to make the walls disappear, revealing the beautiful landscape beyond, and in the case of Kageyama, that landscape was whatever the hell was going on inside that stupid dumb asshole brain of his. His expression was always stoic, a frown in its default state, and Hinata realized that he was never really able to tell what Kageyama was thinking, unlike him, who wore his heart on his sleeve. Kageyama was a wall standing in front of him, and Hinata wanted to climb.

So, Kageyama didn't want to come over to his house, that was fine, cool, whatever! Big deal! Maybe he could aim for a smaller goal in the meantime and work his way up.

Hinata had never been great at literature, or reading between the lines. He took things literally most of the time, and his brain didn't quite work in a way that let him beat around the bush. He was a direct person, and would often say what was on his mind with little thought or restraint. Furthermore, he often could not translate the concepts in his brain into words - something profound and complex often lost its meaning when he tried to put it into spoken word. Kageyama was the opposite, almost, with an exclusion to when he lost his temper (which was often) where he could put his foot in his mouth just as much as Hinata did.

But still, now and then, though, Hinata could almost swear that Kageyama was reaching out in small ways. Hands that would dance in the corners of his vision, or Kageyama lifting his arms towards Hinata when neither of them were quite paying attention to their own actions. So, maybe, just maybe, not all hope was lost.

So, it was with a distinct lack of tact or grace that Hinata just asked directly what he wanted to know as they sat down for lunch in their usual spot.

"So, Kageyama. What do you usually do outside of school anyways?"

Kageyama looked at him with a wilted and mocking expression that instantly had Hinata fired up and ready to argue, although he vehemently stuffed down the urge. "Uh, volleyball? What kind of a question is that?"

Hinata squinted at him. "No, no, I know that! I mean, like, totally outside of the school grounds. Like... from the time after we split up to go home until the morning. What do you do then?"

"Eat, sleep." He paused, as if thinking. "Study, sometimes."

"And?"

"And _what_ _?_ " Kageyama was beginning to look irritated.

"That can't be all you do!" Hinata waved his arms, starting to feel exasperated. "Don't you have, oh I don't know, hobbies? You know, like a normal person?"

Perhaps that last bit was the wrong thing to say, because suddenly Kageyama was all up in arms and ready to fight, a typical response that occurred from a quarter of the interactions that the two of them had. Usually a petty argument was a great way to burn off some energy, but this time, Hinata actually wanted to have a productive conversation, and Kageyama was just being stubborn at this point.

"And what is that supposed to mean?!"

Hinata threw his arms up completely into the air, both of their lunches forgotten in the wake of an argument. "Nothing! It literally meant nothing! I just wanted to know! What's your _problem_ _?_ "

"What's _my_ problem? Excuse me!?" Kageyama's face was inching closer, their foreheads nearly pressed together.

"You're excused," Hinata spat back. "I'm just _curious_ _!_ "

"Yeah, well there's nothing to be curious about. You know everything already, so mind your own business, shitstain."

Hinata wanted to rip out his own hair. Why did Kageyama have to be so... so... _explosive_ over absolutely everything all the time? Hinata knew that his own physical stamina was incredible, but Kageyama had him beat in mental stamina - his stupid ass was just so _stupidly_ stubborn about the _stupidest_ of things. 

_But I_ don't _know! There's obviously so much more that you're not telling me!_

So Hinata learned that Kageyama was absolutely probably most intentionally closed off, and the task ahead was beginning to seem much more daunting than previously expected.

\- ♠️ -

Volleyball practice that day was weird for several reasons. First, in the changing room, as Kageyama was grabbing his gym shorts out of his backpack, a _can opener_ had clacked its way out of the bag and onto the floor. That was weird enough on its own, but then Kageyama's face was turning bright red as he snatched it back up to shove in his bag.

A can opener. A... can opener? Why a _can opener?_

"Why do you have a can opener in your bag?" Hinata wondered aloud as he began to strip his clothes. He turned back to look at Kageyama to note that his neck and the small amount of flesh showing above his shirt collar was stained red like his face as well, as if he was really embarrassed, which didn't make any sense at all, because what the fuck, it was just a can opener, weird as it was. "Do you keep snacks in your bag? Can I have some?"

"I don't-- it's not-- no, you can't have any!" Kageyama replied hotly, shoving his backpack into a locker.

"Then why do you have a can opener? Is it a weapon?"

"No!"

"I bet you do have snacks. If you don't want to share then you should just say so."

"What are you, stupid? I literally just did!"

"But then why--"

"Oh my god, shut up! Shut up and just... put on a shirt and get your ass on the court before I kick it there myself."

Kageyama began to storm away, before he paused to turn around and glare back at him. "And don't you even _think_ about going through my stuff."

Hinata hadn't thought about it until Kageyama mentioned it, but now he was _really_ curious. Of course he wouldn't dare sift through Kageyama's stuff because a) Hinata did value the 'living and being alive' aspect of his life and being murdered would be detrimental to that, and b) that would be _rude_ and make Kageyama angry and violate the sense of trust that Hinata had been trying desperately to build up. 

"Uh... I won't." Hinata replied, feeling dumb and at a loss of what to say. He felt like that a lot around Kageyama lately. It contrasted everything that made Hinata himself to just... feel blank and puzzled like that, with no clear course of action to take. Hinata was so used to acting without thinking, but Kageyama required an immense amount of thought from Hinata's overworked brain to be able to understand him to any degree.

Kageyama shifted back and forth, as if he were trying to decide whether or not to stay and guard his backpack or begin his warm ups. He eventually settled with a brisk nod before storming out, and Hinata was relieved that at least Kageyama trusted his word enough to leave him unattended - it was such a small thing, but Hinata was so desperate for progress that he had decided to count it as at least some sort of win... although rifling through that bag would probably be pretty satisfying. He shot a quick glance to the offending bag, stuffed haphazardly into a locker with the door hanging open. What other interesting things did Kageyama have on him? He resisted the urge to snoop, instead choosing to grab a notebook out of his backpack to scribble down 'carries a can opener in his bag' underneath a small list labeled, 'Kageyama'. The list so far was short, including so far, 'likes volleyball', 'doesn't like to talk about his life', and 'actually has a dad, who'd have thought'?

The second thing that made practice weird was that Kageyama left _early_ , complaining of a stomach ache and saying that he needed to go home, which was very unusual. Kageyama was the type to hide his illnesses at all costs, coming into practice even when he had a cold, or worse for absolutely everyone, the flu - he hated missing practice more than anything. Kageyama loved volleyball more than anything else, so why would this suddenly be the one time that Kageyama wanted to leave? Hinata wondered briefly if he had been eating too many snacks and had gotten sick - he _did_ have that can opener. Then again, his lunch earlier had seemed smaller than usual, and he hadn't bought any milk or yogurt which he did literally every single other day - so that was also weird. When Hinata had asked about it at lunchtime earlier, Kageyama had just said that he forgot to bring any spare change. So it couldn't have been anything that he ate, right? But in that case, it would mean that a) Kageyama was leaving volleyball practice early by choice, and b) Kageyama had just _lied_.

Hinata had offered to walk him home, but Kageyama had insisted that Hinata stay to practice his receives, so Hinata agreed to stay behind, although he remained puzzled.

The third weird thing that happened cemented in Hinata's mind that there was some sort of _funny business_ going on. Kageyama's father had called again an hour and a half after Kageyama had left to go home, and asked if his son was there. Judging by how nervous Yachi had seemed when she came into the gym, Hinata wondered if Kageyama's dad was... angry about something. But the mystery of what was going on there was overshadowed by the bigger mystery of the fact that Kageyama had said he was going to go home, but clearly he _had not done so_. Where had he gone? Hinata saw his own bewilderment mirrored on the faces of his friends as they all stood around awkwardly, Yamaguchi eventually piping up that Kageyama had already left earlier. Hinata began to regret that he hadn't gone with Kageyama. There was a secret there, and Hinata was determined to get to the bottom of it.

\- ♠️ -

Kageyama didn't leave early again the rest of the week and half of the next, but he was noticeably anxious towards the end of their practices and seemed nervous about getting home. Hinata secretly found himself wondering if he was actually, truly _going home_. But where else would he go? Was he holing up in the library to study? It seemed unlikely, Kageyama had gotten back two tests just the day before and his grades were even more abysmal than usual, so something had to be distracting him that wasn't school. 

Maybe it was his dad. But then again, Kageyama clearly hadn't gone home that one day after practice. Was he avoiding him? Maybe he was running errands? But what kind of errands would be so visibly and obviously distracting to him? 

Maybe he had a girlfriend. For some reason, Hinata hated this idea. Kageyama was cool, it would make sense if there were girls who were into him. Hinata wondered what kind of girl Kageyama would like. Would his girlfriend know more about Kageyama than Hinata did? Well, probably. The thought made Hinata oddly miserable. He wondered if Kageyama would accept a girl's invitation to go to her house, or if she would go over to his. He wondered if Kageyama would invite her up to his room, and what she would find in there.

_Am I jealous? Is it because I want a girlfriend too?_ Hinata considered this before declaring internally that _no_ , that wasn't quite it. _Is it because I want to be the one who's closest to Kageyama_ _?_ The internal voice in Hinata's head was quiet. 

Well then.

Hinata turned to Kageyama as they walked uphill, approaching the spot where they would split off to go home; Kageyama would turn down a maze of suburban streets, and Hinata would continue to climb upward through the path hugged on both sides by dense forest, and up the mountain. Kageyama's head was turned towards the woods. He seemed to be zoning out, and Hinata found himself briefly admiring the muscles and tendons moving subtly within Kageyama's neck - wait, what? Uh-- well anyways--

"Hey, Kageyama. Do you like anyone?"

Hinata thought he caught Kageyama stumble forward a little bit, but he wasn't really sure. Kageyama looked back at him with a scowl. "Do I like anyone?" He echoed blankly.

"Yeah," Hinata confirmed. "Someone who you like? A crush?"

"Someone?" Kageyama echoed again, seeming almost... defensive.

"Oh, come on, Kageyama, it's not hard! Like, you know, _girls!_ Do you like any girls?"

Kageyama seemed to relax considerably, but Hinata wasn't sure why he had been so up in arms about it in the first place. _What a weirdo_. He couldn't identify the complicated emotion on Kageyama's face. _Guarded? Relieved? Defensive?_ None of those seemed to be quite right. "No, I don't. I don't know that I'm particularly interested in that sort of stuff. Not that it's any of your business anyways." He added the last part stiffly. "Shouldn't you keep your mind on volleyball? We should be focusing all of our energy on preparing for the Interhigh." 

Hinata felt himself release a breath, unaware of how much of his own hopes had been riding on that question, or how loaded it had subconsciously been for him. Good! ...for him! For a moment Hinata felt much better, and his stride bounced momentarily before another weight settled in his chest. _Not interested. What does that mean? And why do I want to know so bad, anyways?_ He slapped his own face, Kageyama looking back at him with a puzzled expression. _Get a grip, Shouyou!_

Hinata finally spoke after a long moment of trying to get his stupid dumb thoughts about stupid dumb Kageyama under control. "Uh, yeah, you're right. But... shouldn't you be telling yourself that, too?" Perhaps he was overstepping, but Hinata had never been too good at thinking before he spoke. He looked back over at Kageyama again--

Kageyama was no longer there.

Hinata hadn't even realized that they had approached the spot where they would split off until he had looked beside him to find Kageyama already gone and walking away down the street, probably having not even heard him. His comment was supposed to be a segue into an interrogation - he had been hoping to ask Kageyama what he was going to be doing today, intent on finding some answers, but now it would have to wait. Kageyama was a mystery, and Hinata's own ineptness for reading between the lines made itself known to him again as he stared after his friend's form growing smaller in the distance. Two things were made clear in that moment - one, Hinata absolutely did not have the forethought or planning capabilities to be a detective. He was much better suited to activities he could face head on, like volleyball. Second, he had developed some kind of weird fascination with Kageyama.

Several hours and one wet dream later, he had awoken with the lingering ghostly touch of Kageyama over him, and the nature of this fascination had made itself abundantly clear.

_Oh my god. I have a crush on him, don't I._ It wasn't even really a question.

_Well, fuck!_


	3. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata sees something he wasn't supposed to.

\- ♠️ -

Surprise

Realizing his feelings had enabled Hinata to see Kageyama in a whole new light.

It was just a crush, Hinata had told himself. He wasn't going to let it interfere with his and Kageyama’s relationship, or their teamwork during volleyball. Besides, wanting to get closer to somebody didn't necessarily have to stem from a crush, right? Hinata was fine if the only thing the two of them ever would be was friends - happy with it, even. The crush was probably just a temporary thing anyways - a byproduct of curiosity. He'd been thinking of Kageyama a lot lately, after all, and this wasn't the first time he'd had a weird dream about a friend. Maybe it had been the first time it was a dream about a _boy_ friend, though.

That had happened a few times before at least, but Hinata had always just shrugged it off as his brain coming up with gibberish. He'd never outright considered whether or not he was attracted to boys, though.

Maybe it was just Kageyama? Hm.

Still though, all of that... confusing stuff aside, there was a matter of the current distance, and Kageyama's stubbornness towards keeping to himself.

Hinata's breakthrough had finally come in an unexpected form the next day.

As practice for the afternoon began, it had started to rain heavily, and Kageyama had seemed oddly... distracted. His sets were off, he was slow to react, and he even completely dropped the ball at one point, prompting Tsukishima to mockingly ask him if he were feeling ill again, but all that Kageyama responded with was a glare. It was as if he were too distracted to even come up with a scathing retort, something that usually seemed effortless for him. The rest of the team had never brought up Kageyama's... incident, from the other day - the thing about the phone call. Kageyama himself was continuing to act otherwise as if it had never happened, and he had been more or less as focused as usual until the time where they would be leaving, where he would suddenly get anxious.

Hinata had never met Kageyama's dad, but figured that he somehow had something to do with all of this. But if Hinata tried to bring it up, Kageyama would either change the subject, say "it's fine, stop pestering me," or just ignore it altogether. Hinata decided he did not like this dad of Kageyama's, and wondered too why it had never otherwise been a problem up until now.

_Maybe Kageyama didn't mention him otherwise because he's not usually around? Hm..._

Hinata didn't have time to think about it further before Kageyama was suddenly declaring that he was, indeed, not feeling well, thank you Tsukishima for being oh so wonderfully observant, and that he needed to go home. The team exchanged suspicious glances, Noya even asking if everything was alright. Kageyama was quick to assure that _yes_ , everything was fine, he just needed to go. Hinata quickly piped up that he'd walk home with Kageyama, leading Kageyama to round on him with a venomous glare.

"No, you need to stay here and practice."

"If you're not feeling well, I'll walk you home! I don't mind!"

"Yeah, well maybe _I_ mind, dumbass!"

"Well maybe _I_ don't care if you mind and I'm gonna do it anyways!"

"Can't you take a damn hint?"

"No! I'm going with you!"

"Hinata!"

" _Kageyama!!"_

"You need to stay and work on your receives. You've been sloppy lately."

"Says you, like you're one to talk! I'm coming with you and that's that, so let's just go already!"

"Fucking-- you know what, fine!"

" _Fine!"_

They both stomped their way out of the door, shoving to be the one to exit first until they both popped out like a cork. Outside, the downpour was turbulent and Hinata found himself instantly soaked the moment he stepped out from under the awning. Kageyama was looking towards the sky, clearly distressed in some capacity. Hinata's previous moment of frustration evaporated, leaving concern in its wake.

"Hey, 'Yama. Are you okay?"

Kageyama snapped out from his trance, opening his mouth likely to reply with some scathing retort about Hinata's choice of nickname, before a loud crash of thunder caused him to jump up in shock. Hinata flinched back too, more from Kageyama's reaction than the actual sound. His concern still lingered, but Hinata couldn't help a thread of amusement from rolling through.

"Kageyama... are you scared of thunderstorms?"

Kageyama leveled him with a dry look. "Don't be stupid. Of course I'm not, idiot."

It sounded genuine, but Hinata couldn't help but wonder then what had his friend so spooked, if it wasn't the storm. This time, he was absolutely going to find out today, one way or another.

The rain had wound down to a light drizzle by the time that the two had approached the junction where they would go their separate ways. Kageyama seemed eager to take his leave, waving goodbye to Hinata hastily before taking off at a brisk pace down the road away from him. Hinata watched him for a moment before beginning his trek up the mountain, but only went up a block before he laid his bike down on its side in a ditch, then backtracked down the street to the turnoff point. He just managed to catch a glimpse of Kageyama up the street... then turning right down the next. 

_Doesn't he usually go left?_

Hinata scrambled to catch up whilst maintaining his distance, not wanting Kageyama to notice he was being followed. Part of Hinata felt guilty about trailing after him like some sort of creep, but he had been at a loss for so long and he just... he wanted to know what was going on. Maybe it was none of his business. If he wanted to be a _good_ friend, he should probably have just dropped the whole thing and turned around-- but then the image of Kageyama's face had stopped him in his tracks. That picture of Kageyama scowling with a note of anxiety in his eyes had been awful, and Hinata decided then that if there was something wrong with his friend, it absolutely _was_ his business. Maybe Kageyama would be angry, but he'd have to find out first. Hinata assured himself that Kageyama wasn't the only one who could keep a secret. 

Well, hopefully.

Hinata peered out from behind a tree upon reaching the part of the street where Kageyama had turned, only to whip back behind it when he noticed Kageyama looking back and forth at the mouth of another street. There was absolutely no way Kageyama could have caught on already, he was keeping the distance and staying quiet. Hinata peered out from behind the tree again, but to his dismay, Kageyama was no longer there. 

_Shit. Where'd he go? Did he go down that street? But--... That street just circles around back to the main road, right where we started. Is he looping around?_

Hinata could not identify anywhere else that Kageyama had gone, unless he had gone into one of the houses, but at that point the expedition would be a lost cause because he didn't see which house it would have been. What would he have done in such a case, anyways? Go up to the door and knock?

Hinata had no choice but to scurry up to the street and start heading down it himself. He couldn't see Kageyama yet, beginning to worry that he'd lost him, _dammit_ , and increased his pace until he rounded the bend, and-- _ack!_ Hinata dove to crouch behind some trash cans upon noticing that Kageyama was only a few feet up ahead. He'd caught up too quickly. Hinata could hear Kageyama's footsteps scuffing where he walked on the shoulder of the road, and then stop - _he's looking around, he heard me, oh shit, oh shit_ \- before tentatively starting up again to walk off. Hinata exhaled as quietly as he could, not that Kageyama would hear it anyways, but that had been way too close. 

Hinata peered up again to see that Kageyama had indeed circled all the way around, and was standing back at the junction where they had originally gone their separate ways. Hinata prayed that he wouldn't look too far up the mountain - his bike was totally visible from this angle. He hadn't expected Kageyama to loop around, seriously, what the hell was he doing? He clearly had gone out of his way to make sure that Hinata would be long gone by the time he came back. Whatever he was doing, he hadn't wanted Hinata to see him. 

That sort of stung a little. Hinata felt a little bit guilty, knowing that he was seeing something that Kageyama really probably didn't want him to.

Kageyama was standing off on the strip of grass in front of a trail that led off into the woods. He was still drenched, although the rain had finally stopped altogether, his hair slick to his head and some of it sticking out in weird angles. Hinata distantly registered that his own body was also soaking wet and beginning to feel quite cold in the October chill, wet fingers feeling icy and numb. Hinata made a mental note to write in his notebook later, ' _confirmed: Kageyama doesn't go home._ '

Kageyama stepped into the woods, and Hinata took that as his cue to quickly make his way over to where he had just been standing, footprints leaving slick imprints in the mud. He was doing this, he decided, he had already come this far and fuck it, he was already a shitty friend for following Kageyama in the first place, if he was going down being an ass then he might as well take it to the limit. If he lost track of Kageyama in the forest, he wouldn't know which direction to go to find him, foot trails lost in the leaves. All the effort would have been for nothing. At least with the cover he could follow at a closer distance, as long as he was quiet. Hinata slipped into the woods after him, as silently as he could.

Maybe Kageyama had some sort of meditation routine that he did in the forest, finding his zen or something. Hinata almost laughed to himself - Kageyama's demeanor was the furthest thing from 'zen' imaginable. Maybe he just liked a nice walk in the woods now and then? But that didn’t explain any of his weird behaviour as of recently at all. A bit into the woods, Hinata carefully moving behind the trees out of sight, Kageyama had suddenly stopped beside a gnarled, dead-looking tree. He bent down to kneel next to a part of the trunk that split away, leaving a small sheltered space underneath. Hinata then distinctly heard Kageyama mutter to himself, "oh, no."

_Oh no? Oh no what?_ Hinata peered out further from his hiding spot, trying to get a better look through the foliage. From what little he could see, Kageyama was draped over what looked like some half disintegrated and muddy cardboard box. He was facing away from Hinata, which was good and enabled Hinata to lean even further out in time to catch Kageyama gingerly reaching into the sorry excuse for a box to pull something out. Hinata puzzled, trying to get a closer look as Kageyama transferred the object to one hand and reached to unzip his backpack to... remove his gym clothes? And take out... oh.

_Oh._

Hinata couldn't his jaw from dropping as he caught sight of the orange clump that Kageyama was holding so delicately to his chest to wrap up in his shirt, a small little can of what looked like fish in the other hand, and the object suddenly mewled and Hinata gasped aloud--

Shit.

Well, so much for stealth. Kageyama whipped around, the picture of pure bewilderment on his face as he made eye contact with Hinata, before his features morphed into one of the scariest faces Hinata had ever seen on Kageyama ever. He was dead meat for sure, but he was too astounded by what he’d just seen to feel afraid.

_Kittens._ There were two kittens in that shabby cardboard box, and Hinata stopped short, understanding washing over him. The can opener, Kageyama's distractedness, his insistence on leaving early when it started to pour - it was no wonder he was so anxious. He was taking care of two little kittens in the woods who were probably soaked and hypothermic by now.

"Hinata!!" Kageyama's furious voice knocked Hinata back down to earth, and he jumped back, startled by the anger and... the embarrassment in Kageyama's eyes. "You fucking followed me!? What the hell is _wrong with you--_ "

"I was just worried--" Hinata breathed out, still reeling in shock. "You looked so... you--... so I...?"

"I didn't ask you to check up on me, you piece of--!"

Hinata didn't really hear the rest of that statement. Well, the cat was out of the bag, or the box in this case. He might have even made a joke about Kageyama fraternizing with the enemy, because ha ha, Nekoma and cats, very funny, but the situation felt too heavy for him to choke out the words, and Hinata didn't feel like laughing. Since he had already been found out and was probably about to be murdered and buried in a shallow grave out in the woods of some rural country town anyways, he figured he might as well get a closer look before he kissed his precious life goodbye. Indeed, there were two skinny, shivering, and soaking wet little kittens, too exhausted and weak to even cry out.

Hinata crouched down beside his friend, avoiding what he knew would be an absolutely furious Kageyama face glaring daggers at him, and peered over into the box himself. Two tiny kittens; an orange scrap sitting rolled up in Kageyama's gym shirt in his hands, and then a little black one sitting in the box, trying to keep out of the water that had gathered up in the lowest corner of the box but failing miserably. Hinata reached in with careful hands, Kageyama's voice sounding far away when he barked out, "what the fuck do you think you're--"

"Are they dead?" Hinata didn't let Kageyama finish. He scooped the little black kitten into his hands and out of the water, and was relieved to feel it squirming, although the frigid body temperature of the creature filled Hinata with alarm. He finally met Kageyama's gaze which was burning a hole into the back of his head, surprised to find that the anger had melted away to reveal what looked like fear, almost despair.

"I-- I found them, and--"

"You've been taking care of them?"

Kageyama looked almost bashful. "I've been trying to, but I don't really know much about cats. I've... I've been bringing them food every day, early in the morning before we meet up and after school too, when I can."

Hinata looked around to finally notice a pile of tin cans stacked up off to the side, labelled with some kind of fish blend.

Hinata looked away from the pitiful creatures and back towards Kageyama. At least they seemed to be moderately well fed, although they looked small enough that they probably should have still been drinking milk. "Kageyama..."

"I know! I know, I just, I didn't know what to do-- They were in a gutter and I looked for the mother but it--... she got hit by a car I think, and I--..."

"Can't you take them home?"

Kageyama's gaze darkened. "No... my mom's allergic, and my-- my house isn't... it wouldn't be a good environment for them."

Hinata didn't have time to wonder about the implications of that statement. "What about taking them to a shelter?"

Kageyama looked almost panicked. "I-- I don't... I can't..."

Hinata understood without him having to say it. He had grown attached to the two scraps of fluff and was reluctant to give them up. But...

"Kageyama, the weather is getting cold. They can't stay out here. They need somewhere warm to sleep. They're going to get sick, or worse..."

"I know that, idiot! I... I know. I just--" He breathed out a heady sigh, looking lost. Wrapped up in Kageyama's gym clothes, the orange kitten cried out weakly. "I don't know what to do."

A silence fell between them. Hinata was brought back to the present by the squirm of the kitten in his hand. The kitten was looking up at him, and it blinked slowly. Hinata slowly blinked back, before he brought it closer to his chest, fishing his own gym clothes out of his backpack - he needed to dry it off and get it warmed up. At least his clothes didn't have a chance to get super sweaty since he had barely stayed for practice. Drying the kitten off as gently as he could, he found the kitten staring back up at him with large, wet-looking blue eyes. It looked very young, not that Hinata really knew much about cats either, and it didn't seem to be in total control of its body yet as it tried to squirm towards the warmth from Hinata's body. He could understand how Kageyama had grown so fond of them. Next to him, Kageyama had opened a can and was attempting to get the orange kitten to eat some food off of his finger, but it seemed to be too exhausted to eat.

"Did you name them?"

Kageyama made a noncommittal humming noise, and Hinata wondered if he had even heard the question. He then lifted up the orange kitten slightly, and said, "Cat One." Then he gestured to the other, and said, "Cat Two."

"You're kidding." Hinata balked. "Did you make those up on the spot?"

"No... Maybe."

"Those names are awful! You can't be serious." Kageyama just looked back at him, blank faced. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Well, sorry for being bad at naming cats under pressure, asshole!"

"Pipe down, jeez! You're such a brat. _Look_." Hinata gestured towards the black kitten that just barely fit into one of his hands. "This one is all sleek and black and its eyes are blue. It looks a little bit like you. He's cuter than you for sure, though." He ignored Kageyama's indignant sputtering to gesture at Kageyama's kitten. "That one is orange and its fur is all sticky-uppy like mine." Hinata heard Kageyama scoff at his choice of adjective. "So this black one is going to be Tobi. And the orange one is going to be Shou. Fine? Good, that's settled, good work team, that's a wrap!"

Hinata didn't give Kageyama a chance to object to the names, standing up right as Kageyama started to open his mouth, the kitten wrapped up in his arms. He had given the kittens boy names but he didn't even know if they were boys at all. Kageyama's jaw worked briefly, before shutting with an audible clack of his teeth, and was just looking back up at him with a dumb look on his face.

"Where are you going?"

Hinata hadn't really decided that yet. Actually, he'd just stood up because his legs were starting to cramp. He thought for a moment before he began to speak slowly. "Well, we can't just leave them here. What, were you planning to just put them back in the box?"

Kageyama bristled. "Of course not! I'm not stupid!" He seemed to take on a more thoughtful look. "But where are you going to take them?"

Hinata replied instantly without even really thinking. 

"I'll take them home with me."

Wait, what? Wait a second, he was going to do what-- oh, no, oh no no no. He was about to open his mouth to take back the declaration, he couldn't, sorry man but _no way_ \- but when his eyes met Kageyama's, the words died in his throat. Kageyama looked so... so relieved, and so hopeful, crouched and soaking wet on the forest floor, and Hinata thought that the half-drowned kitten in his arms really did resemble Kageyama after all. So, instead of saying no like he was working himself up to, he said "yes, absolutely. I'll take them home."

Kageyama scrambled up beside him in record timing as Hinata's brain descended into chaos. What was he doing? He didn't know the first thing about raising baby cats, not to mention, he was just going to show up and declare to his mother, 'yes, hi! I come bearing the burden of two additional mouths to feed, can we keep them please please please please--"

Kageyama interrupted the rampaging thoughts by eagerly supplying, "I can pay for them." He was wringing his one free hand in and out, like he didn't know what to do with it. "Like, uh, I mean, food and stuff. And litter, too. Oh, and the vet." He was walking surprisingly close to Hinata, looking over his shoulder at the little black kitten, Tobi, as if he was fighting the urge to snatch it out of Hinata's hand to hold protectively in his own.

"Do you even have that kind of money?"

"Yes, idiot, or I wouldn't be offering. I've already been buying them food."

Well, maybe that was why Kageyama hadn't been going to the vending machine as much lately, if he was using his spare change to buy tuna. Hinata thought to himself that Kageyama wouldn't need to pay for everything anyways though, not with the way that his heart was beginning to swell with affection for the two small creatures. He would gladly put his own money into raising them as well, he realized. Kageyama was looking sheepish, leading Hinata to note to himself that he was witnessing all kinds of new expressions on Kageyama's face today.

"I... Can I... Could I maybe...?"

Hinata had never heard Kageyama sound so nervous before, but he had an idea of what Kageyama was trying to ask.

"You could come over to visit them, if you want to?" _And visit me while you're at it_ , Hinata added inside his own head.

"Really?" That hopeful expression on Kageyama's face was too much. He hadn't known that Kageyama's bastard ass of a face could look so... _cute._

"Yes, really. Whenever you want." Hinata meant it. Looking back at him through the corner of his eyes, Hinata could see the sides of Kageyama's mouth twitching upwards. His eyes were still intense and scary as they always were, but it was a genuine smile born from a pure and simple happiness, and Hinata felt his heart soar. He couldn't help from blurting out, "I'm sorry that I followed you, but I'm also kind of not sorry. So, uh, sorry for not being sorry." He kind of regretted it the moment the words were out of his mouth, because damn, what the hell was that? But the expression on Kageyama's face let him know that he didn't need to. More surprising still was when Kageyama nodded at him, his anger having completely vanished. Without words, he knew that he had been forgiven. Hinata felt unabashedly thrilled.

Kageyama had walked with Hinata all the way up to his doorstep, before regretfully informing Kageyama that it would be best probably for him to go inside alone so Hinata could talk to his mom in private. Kageyama had looked anxious again which Hinata's thoughts mirrored, wondering whether or not his mom would let him keep them.

An hour of negotiation and a steep increase in Hinata's list of daily chores later, Hinata was able to happily text Kageyama that it was all fine, the kittens had a new home to stay in, and they'd never be out on the streets again. Less than a minute later Kageyama had called him, actually _called_ on the phone, to ask if it was really true. It lasted only about fifteen seconds, just a confirmation, but it was a whole ass _call on the phone_ , and that had never happened before. The kittens were in a makeshift blanket nest on Hinata's bed with Hinata spooning around them, and he sent a snapchat of him with the kittens in the frame to Kageyama as well as the rest of the team. 

Kageyama took a screenshot.

Hinata ended up partially regretting putting the kittens on the bed because they fell asleep there and he didn't have the heart to move them. He lay in his own makeshift nest now of blankets on the wooden floor instead. It was getting late now, but Hinata found himself unable to stop his mind from replaying the scene of Kageyama holding the kitten so delicately in his large hands. It made his stomach feel strange, and as he began to drift off, the vision in his head shifted to Kageyama holding Hinata's head gingerly to his chest, with a hand cupping his cheek softly and the other running through his hair. He regretfully indulged the fantasy, feeling bad for having such weird thoughts about his friend and making such an innocent situation into something weird. But the dreamlike feeling was too pleasant for Hinata to shrug off in his sleepy state. Maybe he'd remember to feel embarrassed about it in the morning - he could try to play it off as a platonic thing, because yeah, friends totally cupped their other friends' faces delicately in their hands and stroked them lovingly with affectionate and hooded eyes.

It was lovely to fall asleep to, though.

He had made a breakthrough that day, and he fell asleep feeling giddy and excited as he could feel the new path opening up in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it to start - see you in a day or two when I'll be back with the fourth chapter, where things get rolling!


	4. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama comes over.

\- ♠️ -

Blue

When Hinata woke up for school the next day, he was astounded to find his bike leaning up against the side of his house. He could see no one in sight who would have brought it home, and he most certainly had not done so.

So that was interesting. 

But more importantly:

Kageyama was coming over after school today. To Hinata's house.

Kageyama was coming over to his _house_.

It had only taken months and months of failed attempts, so to say that Hinata was thrilled would be a grave understatement.

After practice, Kageyama had shuffled up to Hinata as he was grabbing his belongings, hovering away to the side enough that the team wouldn't stare, but close enough that Hinata could distinctly feel Kageyama's eyes on him. Remembering his dream from last night (at a most inopportune time), Hinata tried his best to play it cool while he changed, decidedly _not_ thinking about how Kageyama's long, slender fingers would feel against his naked chest. He wondered if Kageyama was still watching. A weird part of him kind of hoped he was.

The walk home was spent in amiable silence. Hinata could still remember Kageyama's surprisingly soft face from the day before, when he'd agreed to take the kittens. Looking at him now, the sour face had returned, although Hinata thought that maybe he looked less disgruntled than usual, even if it was only a little. Hinata didn't expect his heart to be beating so hard by the time they were standing on the front doorstep.

_It's really happening_. Well, maybe the only reason was that Hinata now had some sort of leverage over Kageyama, but he was willing to take what he could get. 

Hinata faced a moment of self-consciousness upon entering his room. He had cleaned it up as best he could, but things were still askew. He'd forgotten to make his bed in the morning, his pyjamas were just sitting in a pile next to his pillow on the bed, and ugh, there were socks on the floor--

Kageyama entered the room and his eyes somehow managed to dart directly to the kittens, fast asleep in a cocoon of blankets that was acting as a temporary bed. Hinata watched him cross the room in a stride and a half, his large form somehow making the room feel small and cramped. He sat cross legged on the floor and just looked at them, unmoving.

Hinata felt the need to break the silence.

"Um." 

Wow. Great start.

"Have you been feeding them?" Kageyama asked after another pause.

"Yeah. My mom and I took a quick trip to the convenience store last night to grab some food at least, but we still need to get them their own dishes, a real bed..."

The kittens were beginning to wake up, roused by the noise. Kageyama scooped both of them up in his hands and into his lap. They began to crawl all over him, and his face lit up like Christmas, even when Shou sneezed a tiny little wet sneeze onto his shirt.

"I never knew that you liked cats, Kageyama," Hinata teased.

"Shut up."

"It wasn't an insult, jeez." Hinata scooped up the orange tabby kitten, who had begun to shuffle his (her?) way across the room, triangular tail sticking straight up in the air. Kageyama glanced at him as he sat down, but then pointedly turned away and began to stroke Tobi as if to occupy his hands. Hinata began to feel distinctly weirded out the more Kageyama side eyed him.

"Do you have something to say, or do you just need to take a shit? Bathroom’s on the left!" Hinata tried to joke, feeling somewhat awkward. He had wanted to get Kageyama into his house for so long now, but now that he was here, he wasn't sure what to do with himself.

_What did I expect? He'd come over and we'd make out on my bed? Wait wait no stop, think about something else ackk--_

"I just... I wanted to say... th... th--..." A deep breath. Kageyama wouldn't look at him. "Thanks. For taking them. I... appreciate it." He spoke through gritted teeth as if admitting that he was thankful to Hinata was causing him physical pain.

Hinata couldn't stop the grin that split its way across his face. He slapped Kageyama hard on the back, earning a grunt. "You really do have a soft side!" Kageyama looked at him sourly as he continued. "I just wish that you'd show it to me a little more often."

Why did he say that.

"You want me to go soft on you?" He barked out a dry laugh. "Don't make me laugh. Someone needs to keep your dumb ass in check."

"Don't be rude!"

"You're the type of person that _someone_ has to be rude to, might as well be me."

"Oh fuck off, Kageyama, you're such an ass!"

"You're an ass."

"You are clearly the bigger ass here!"

More silence. Hinata was the one to break it yet again. He was about to make a comment on the kittens, maybe something about how cute and squirmy they were, but then--

"Why are you so closed off towards me?"

That hadn’t been what he’d wanted to come out at all. Hinata wanted to slap his hand over his mouth. He just kept... saying things, without thinking, and the way Kageyama was looking at him in bewilderment with those deep blue eyes... wow, they really were blue, weren't they? From a distance they could totally pass as being black, but up close, they were the colour of a deep, deep ocean. Up close - up close? _Oh_. 

Hinata only just then took notice of just how close they were sitting, knees brushing as they sat cross legged on the floor. With a grand effort, Hinata managed to pry his own eyes away from Kageyama's before his face heated up any further. Kageyama didn't move away.

"I'm not."

"But you _are_ _!_ " 

"We hang out all the time. We change clothes in front of each other. I've seen you cry. I'm always around you. How is that closed off?"

It occurred to Hinata in that moment that maybe Kageyama’s aloof nature might not have been exclusively intentional. Maybe he was just so emotionally constipated and unused to having genuine friends that he never even realized that he had been keeping so many secrets. Or maybe he did know it but was just too... embarrassed? Shy? Anxious... to let anyone else see the deeper side of him. _Deep blue ocean eyes, full of secrets._

"I'd be your best friend if you'd let me."

Kageyama stared at him blankly. He looked so genuinely confused, eyebrows tensed and like he was itching to berate him in some way.

When it didn't seem like Kageyama was going to reply, Hinata blurted out a question.

"Kageyama. What do you see me as?"

"A dumbass," Kageyama replied instantly.

"Hahahaha wow, you're so funny, what a clever insult, get a load of this fucking comedian over here," Hinata drawled in a deadpan voice. "I mean like--"

"I know what you mean." He seemed embarrassed. "You're... a rival."

Hinata tried his hardest not to deflate. "That's it?"

"You're the only one who can keep up with my sets. You're... a partner." Well, that was something for sure. "I'm... I feel like I'm invincible when you're on the court with me. No one can stand up to us when we’re at our best." Wow, now that was a statement, and very high praise - Hinata knew it, but he couldn't help but wish that Kageyama would say something about... well, about him as a person. Not just about how it would relate to their teamwork. "And... I like the person I am when I'm around you more than the one I am when I'm not."

Woah.

Hinata didn't know how to respond to that, and Kageyama took the opportunity to speak up again.

"And... I know." 

Knew what?

Kageyama had begun to look irritated, but Hinata thought he truly had learned enough about Kageyama by then that he could identify the look as complete and utter _embarrassment_. He waited for him to continue, but no more words came.

"What do you know?"

"You'd be my friend."

"Kageyama." Hinata took a deep breath, willing himself to be patient. "I said _best_ friend. We're already friends."

Kageyama blinked at him stupidly, staring intently into his eyes. His stare was so weirdly focused in that moment. Hinata started to squirm under the intensity, which made the kitten in his arms squirm too and hop out of his hands to begin crawling up onto Kageyama. Well, if now was the time to be having deep, honest conversations, Hinata figured he might as well be open as well. Communication was a two way street, or something like that.

"I've been trying to get you to come here for months."

"To your house? Why?" Kageyama scrunched up his nose at him, probably trying to look snide. But Hinata just sort of thought he looked cute, even if he did kind of want to wipe the smug look off of Kageyama's face.

"Because we're friends, and friends hang out with each other. And we are those. _Friends_." He spoke slowly, willing Kageyama to grasp the concept. Hinata wondered if his words were truly aimed at Kageyama, or himself. _Friends. We're just friends. Just friends._ "Friends talk to each other."

"We're friends?" Kageyama looked like he was trying to sneer, or seem haughty in some manner, but for once it wasn't really working. He just looked kind of... _Conflicted? Alarmed? Sad?_ It was another one of those faces that Hinata couldn't identify.

"Uh, duh? We have been for months. Seriously, Kageyama, how emotionally constipated are you?"

"I'm not emotionally constipated, jackass, fuck off!"

Hinata had run out of things to say, and with an exasperated sigh, he flopped backwards onto his back, where Tobi crawled away from Kageyama and up onto Hinata's chest.

"...He likes you," Kageyama said after several moments. Hinata glanced up at the tiny cat who had sunk down and looked just about half asleep.

"And Shou _really_ seems to like you," Hinata said, gesturing at the spiky orange kitten in Kageyama's lap, sprawled out on its back and purring wheezily. "I always thought you'd be the type where animals hated you."

"Fuck you." A pause. "...Well, it's usually like that. I don't really get along well with animals." _Or people_ , Hinata refrained from adding. "I like them, but they don't like me. ...Maybe these guys will eventually hate me, too."

Kageyama sounded so... _bitter_ about it. Hinata eyed him - they were still sitting quite close, knees touching. He was so gentle and sweet with the kittens. Kageyama bent over to gently scoop up Shou, back on the move, whose tiny little claws had gotten stuck on the fabric of his jeans. 

"Nah. I don't think so." Hinata replied honestly. "How could they? You rescued them. You're their mommy."

The tips of Kageyama's ears were turning red, and Hinata couldn't help but snicker as Kageyama grumpily muttered indignantly in response, "I am _not_ their _mommy_."

"I can't believe it was kittens that managed to get you talking this much."

"I talk a normal amount. It's you who doesn't shut up."

"Yeah, yeah. You're gonna come over tomorrow too, right?"

"...Yeah."

"Let's buy some cat supplies on the way home."

"Yeah."

"We can get Tobi and Shou a real bed and some toys."

"Yeah."

"And you can buy me a pork bun, too!"

"Yeah-- wait, no--"

"Too late, you just said yeah! Woo-hoo! Kageyama's buying me a pork bun!"

"Fuck you." Kageyama slapped his hand onto Hinata's face, and he shrieked in response as Kageyama squeezed his head like he wanted to pop it, but when Hinata reared up, Kageyama was laughing. Hinata paused, looking on in awe as Kageyama's shoulders shook and his mouth hovered open with the corners tugged up, eyes creased. The sound itself was quiet and airy, not even so much a laugh as it was, dare he say it, a giggle. Hinata had of course heard Kageyama laugh before, but that was generally the barking laugh he used when Hinata hurt himself by accident, or when Kageyama had just come up with a strategy to wipe the floor with the other team when they were playing volleyball. Kageyama's usual laughter was sharp and bordered almost on dangerous, and Hinata usually found himself nervous when Kageyama was laughing, because it generally meant he was about to be on the receiving end of Kageyama's unrivaled and unyielding fury.

This laugh was different. It was simple, just a little bit of a chuckle more than anything, but it was completely free of any malice whatsoever. So Hinata couldn't help but laugh too - he felt so overjoyed to be in the presence of that sound that he didn't think he could keep the giddiness inside if he tried.

He wanted to hear that laugh more often going forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning! Here's the fourth chapter, it's a little on the shorter side but the next one will be a little longer. I've also decided I'll be uploading every other day so the next time I'll see you guys is Tuesday! I'm so floored by all of the lovely comments you guys have left, I really hope the rest of this dorky little story lives up to expectations ;w; *blows a kiss*


	5. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama opens up for the first time ever.

\- ♠️ -

Truth

Kageyama came over the next day, and the day after that, too.

Hinata learned a few things over these two days. Especially after having taken the kittens to the vet.

He had learned that the kittens were both boys, and were between four or five weeks old. He'd also learned that Shou had an upper respiratory infection, and Hinata had received some prescription medication to treat it. The first thing he did when he got home that evening was text Kageyama. He very quickly received a reply.

Kageyama

On my way

Wait, what? Hinata had mentioned nothing about Kageyama coming over. It was getting late already. The sun was already setting.

Kageyama arrived on Hinata's doorstep disheveled but in record timing, sweaty from biking to his house as fast as possible, and Hinata found himself frozen in place as he noticed that Kageyama had four eyes.

"What," he shrieked, voice sounding alien to his own ears as he pointed up at Kageyama's face, "are _those!_ "

The acid in Kageyama's glare could strip the paint from a wall. "Uh... my _glasses?_ "

"You wear glasses? What! Since _when?_ "

"Since I was a kid? I'm nearsighted. I wear contacts usually, but I already took them out for the day, and I needed to get here fast..."

Hinata blanked, before slapping himself on the forehead. "Oh! Of course, the cats!"

"Yeah. The cats,” Kageyama echoed flatly. “Where are they?"

"Upstairs. Come on."

Upon entering the room, the boys were met by Shou loudly screeching at the door. 

"Ee! Eeee!" Said Shou, winding himself around Kageyama’s leg.

Tobi was in the back, engrossed in batting around a toy by himself. Kageyama beamed down at them, scooping Shou easily up into his arms.

They settled down as usual, Hinata laying on his bed with his arms and head dangling down, and Kageyama on the floor with a sleepy sneezy Shou in his lap. Truthfully, Kageyama hadn't necessarily needed to visit. Shou’s infection would take a few days to clear, and it wasn't like the situation was dire, either. But Kageyama had still chosen to come.

"You're here awfully late."

"I snuck out."

"You what!?"

"Yeah," Kageyama confirmed. "If Shou is sick then I want to be here with him."

"Do your parents know about the kittens? Couldn’t you just have told them? They’d understand, wouldn’t they?"

Kageyama’s weary look answered those questions easily, but Hinata still gave his full attention when Kageyama spoke.

"No. They think I've been going to the library to study every time I come here."

"...So they don't know about me, either?"

"No."

Hinata blinked down at Kageyama, who was doing his best to look literally anywhere that wasn't in Hinata's general direction. Hinata took a brief moment to admire Kageyama in his glasses. They were square, black and sleek, and framed his face nicely. He could see why Kageyama preferred contact lenses - the glasses completely depleted his threatening aura and just made him look cute. Very, _very_ cute. Hinata had to look away before his heart beat its way out of his chest and flopped onto the floor.

"...My dad's finally gone," Kageyama said after a long pause.

"Oh, so we're finally going to talk about that?"

"Shut up, I'm trying to bare my soul here. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Hinata dropped his teasing tone quickly. "Yep, right, shutting up now. Continue!"

Hinata tried to make his voice sound light and encouraging, but he had never been the most tactful person. If he was honest with himself, he never quite knew how to navigate with Kageyama voluntarily sharing information - one wrong thing said and Kageyama would clam up and the opportunity would vanish. After a long moment, Kageyama continued.

"He's gone back to work."

Silence. Again, as there often was when Hinata finally managed to get Kageyama talking. Feeling antsy, Hinata spoke upon deciding that no, Kageyama was not going to continue without prompting.

"...And?"

"And what? That's it."

"That's it? That was you ‘baring your soul’?"

"What more do you want?"

"What does your dad do?" Hinata asked, genuinely curious. 

"Stuff," Kageyama replied, voice flat.

"Kageyama, you're doing it again."

More silence. For fuck's sake, Kageyama was a pain.

"You're a pain," Hinata decided to assert out loud. "How about this. Let's play truth or dare."

"That sounds stupid."

"What, are you scared?" Hinata teased.

Hinata had set the bait. Kageyama took it.

"Fine. I pick dare."

"I dare you to lick the floor."

Kageyama's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "Are you fucking joking?"

"Not at all. Do you forfeit? Wow, that was pathetic. You couldn't even do one single da--"

Kageyama bent over from his cross legged position (wow, flexible) and licked a quick stripe across the panels of the wood floor. He came up gagging on cat hair and lint.

"Do 'ou e'fen eve' vaccom 'our f'oor?" Kageyama spat out, and proceeded to wipe his tongue with his hand.

"I have no idea what you just said! My turn!" Hinata chirped, pointedly ignoring Kageyama's glare. "I pick truth."

Kageyama seemed to be stumped, looking back at him owlishly. "What should I ask?"

"I don't know! I'm not you. What do you want to know? You've played truth or dare before, right? Ask something you've asked before if you can't think of something. I don’t really care if it’s original. Don’t hurt yourself."

A long pause.

"...You've never played truth or dare, have you."

"It's supposed to be my turn to be asking," Kageyama muttered haughtily.

"Then ask something already! Anything, I don’t care what it is!"

"...Okay. Tell me something that you don't want me to know."

"I secretly think you're almost kind of a little bit cool," Hinata said with zero hesitation. He didn't mind letting go of one of his secrets in exchange for progress.

"I already knew that, idiot."

"What! You did?! How?"

"Well, obviously," Kageyama sounded smug. "You're not exactly very good at being subtle."

_I can keep things hidden when I need to,_ Hinata thought, remembering the dreams he had been having as of late, but then immediately regretted it once his face began to turn red. If Kageyama noticed, Hinata hoped he would take it as just him being embarrassed about being found out. 

_If only you knew._

"Okay, your turn--"

"Dare," Kageyama supplied quickly.

"Nope! Can't pick dare twice in a row!"

"What? That's not a rule. You just made that up!"

"Nope, it's a rule. Very legit, very official. I would know, since I've actually played this game before, unlike somebody. Not naming any names, though. So you have no room to argue!"

"Fine. Truth, since clearly there's no other option."

"What's your family like?"

Kageyama looked caught off guard, as if he had been expecting some kind of joke question, or at least something that wasn't so... genuine. There was another long pause, Hinata fully expecting to be shrugged off yet again, so when Kageyama opened his mouth to speak, Hinata's head whipped up to face him in surprise. He was just sitting on the floor cross legged on the other side of the room, petting Shou who was sleeping and purring wheezily from the space between his legs. Hinata privately thought he looked good with a cat in his lap, until his brain unhelpfully substituted this image for one where _he_ was resting in Kageyama's lap instead. Of course his doppelganger would get to be sitting there, while Hinata could literally only dream of it. Shou looked positively blissful, runny nose and all, and Hinata chided himself for being a little bit jealous of a _kitten_ , of all things.

"...I'm an only child. I have a mom, but I don't often see her. I have a dad who I see even less."

"Huh? Wow... are you... okay with that?"

"You already asked a truth question."

"But I'm not satisfied!" Hinata whined. "Keep going."

Kageyama began to exert a threatening aura as the two of them stared at each other, neither wanting to be the first to back down - but Hinata held his ground, squinting at him and trying to exude some sort of threatening aura of his own, even if it probably just looked like he needed to sneeze, or worse, take a shit. Hinata fully expected that Kageyama would refuse in his next breath, but he ended up heaving a sigh, and Hinata was astounded when he began to speak again.

"My dad has... all of these _plans_ for me. He wants me to be an accountant or a CEO or some shit like that. He thinks volleyball is a waste of time."

"What? But you're _brilliant_ at volleyball!"

Kageyama just looked at him dryly, and Hinata shut his mouth with a click and made a zipper and key motion with his mouth. Well, there went another one of his own secret thoughts.

After a moment, Kageyama kept going.

"...We've never gotten along. Him and my mom don't either. He doesn't... hit me, or anything like that. But he's just... distanced, physically and emotionally." Kageyama laughed, sounding unusually bitter even for him. "He's always off in other countries doing business. He comes home a few times a year to berate me and make my life hell and then leave again. As if he gets to just... just be nonexistent and then think he has the right to just... barge into my life and fuck _everything_ up--"

Kageyama seemed to grow aware in that moment of just how riled up he had been getting, and how much he had just said.

"...I'm sorry. Maybe I should--" He seemed like he was standing up to leave, but Hinata threw his arms out to wave frantically, forcing Kageyama to face him.

"Kageyama, wait! Don't go. I'm glad you told me."

Kageyama's eyes narrowed as he sat back down again in a huff. Eventually, he continued.

"...He got mad when he found out I was still playing volleyball. I had been pretending to go to the library all the time recently, just to get him to shut his fucking ass up about stupid _fucking_ volleyball. I just... fuck. I see your house and it just looks so... lived in. You're lucky. Your parents seem like they're always home. Like they're... _there_."

"Just my mom. I don't have a dad," Hinata said airily.

"...Oh."

"He died when I was little. Car accident. I never even knew him that well, really. I was too young."

"...I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"It's fine! It's not a big deal." And it wasn't. Hinata had been over it long, long ago.

When Kageyama didn’t respond, Hinata decided to butt in with another question, just to see if he could.

"What do most people think is true about you, but isn't?"

He wasn't able to get away with it quite so easily. 

"It's supposed to be my turn now," Kageyama muttered with what almost could have been mistaken for a pout.

"Fine, I'll answer it." Hinata willfully ignored Kageyama's protest about a) how his 'question' was actually supposed to be a dare this time if they were indeed playing by Hinata's rules, and b) it was supposed to be Kageyama who chose it. "Hm, something people think is true about me... Hrmmm... Maybe that I'm always happy and upbeat one hundred percent of the time? And that nothing phases me. I actually used to get a lot of panic attacks in middle school. I'd get all jittery and sweaty and have an upset stomach and have to go hide out in the nurse’s office."

Kageyama actually looked kind of intrigued by this confession. Hinata felt sort of self conscious about admitting it, but he figured he’d have to put himself out on the line if he wanted to encourage Kageyama to do the same.

"...Oh,” was what Kageyama eventually said. “I didn't know that. But I mean, it also seems kind of obvious. Uh, the part about being happy all the time, I mean." Kageyama was quick to clarify before Hinata even opened his mouth in offense. His next words were spoken much more quietly. "No one can be expected to be fine all the time." Coming from Kageyama, the observation sounded unusually thoughtful. "...What did you get panic attacks about?"

"Generally stuff about like... not being good enough, I guess? Or letting people down." Kageyama was nodding sagely, looking like he was listening closely, so Hinata felt emboldened as he went on. "I'd get overwhelmed easily - still do sometimes. Like, in middle school, playing on the volleyball team, it felt like I had to carry the whole team on my back." He laughed a bit. "And I wasn't even very good at the time, so maybe I was sort of doomed from the start, but I kept trying. I didn't want to let my team down." 

Kageyama was still looking at him, expression unreadable, so he just kept going to fill the emptiness of the room. "I actually overthink a lot of stuff and can be really harsh on myself, but it probably doesn't seem like it since I'm always so quick to get back up and keep trying. But I'm always trying to take criticism seriously so I can get better in everything I do. That way, I don't make the same mistake twice, you know? I'm not very good at words, or thinking really hard, and often I say things that aren't quite what I mean, but I really don't know how to say it any better. So I guess... knowing that I might be making mistakes but not being able to or even knowing how to fix them can make me anxious, especially when people are counting on me. I don't know if that made any sense."

"No, I think I get it. I... I've had them too. Panic attacks."

"Really? You?" Hinata found this hard to believe.

"Yes, me," Kageyama growled as if getting defensive. Hinata chastised himself for not thinking before speaking, once again.

"What do you get them about?"

Kageyama hesitated. His hold on Shou tightened, annoying the kitten, who hopped out of his lap to go investigate a toy on the ground. Chewing at his lip, Kageyama began to absentmindedly wave a feather wand back and forth, Shou and Tobi both shuffling over to bat it as it moved back and forth, and finally he began to relax a bit.

"You know I got benched back in middle school, right?" He kept his eyes on the toy waving around in front of him.

"Yeah, I do. What about it?"

"Well, maybe it sounds stupid, because it kind of is," he said bitterly, voice having lost any amount of nonchalance that he had been maintaining before, before sighing. "But... it kind of... fucked with me, just a bit."

"What about it?"

Hinata was sufficiently distracted for a moment as Kageyama took a moment to push up his glasses with a finger, which had been slipping their way down his nose.

"Uhh... it's... stupid. Let's just--"

"Kageyama." Hinata's voice was surprisingly firm, and he felt triumphant when Kageyama finally met his gaze, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. "You know I'm your friend, right? You can tell me." After a moment he hesitantly added, "I'm not going to judge you for anything. And I'm not going to go anywhere."

This actually seemed to make Kageyama perk up with a look of something... hopeful, in his eyes. Hinata gave himself an internal pat on the back for his instincts leading him to say the right thing for once.

"It's just... with my dad-- my dad... he doesn't..." There was another pause where Kageyama was seemingly trying to collect his thoughts. "It's a long story but he um." Kageyama coughed into his free hand. "He doesn't... trust me to make good decisions, I guess. For... reasons. He thinks every choice I make is a bad one." Hinata nodded encouragingly as Kageyama trailed off. He at least seemed to be growing more confident as he went on. "He was really unhappy that I was on the boys' volleyball team. So I felt like I really needed to prove to him that I could be good at it, that it was a good choice, that I could do it and be... be more than good. I wanted to prove that I could be _great_. So I was always really stressed. And the rest of the team, they weren't always taking it seriously. It made me really mad. I thought it was up to me to whip them into shape, we needed to be good, we needed to win. I invested everything I had into the team. I was holding my dad's high standards for me to them. I guess... I guess I took it way too far."

Hinata blinked at him. He had known about Kageyama getting benched, but he never talked about it otherwise. He seemed to hate even thinking about it, let alone discussing it, so Hinata had never had the guts to press him for more.

"We were... 'friends' off the court too, but not really. They didn't like me. I just followed them around because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I… I had no other friends. I knew they hated me, they thought I was a control freak and a dictator, and they didn't care if I could hear them when they talked about me. It just made me angry and more likely to snap at them. I threw impossible tosses at them and got angrier when they couldn't keep up. I felt like I was carrying the whole team by myself. I thought that I _was_ the whole team." He clenched the feather wand tighter in his hand to the point that Hinata could see his hand trembling.

"Kageyama..." Hinata tried to soothe, beginning to feel worried the more Kageyama worked himself up.

"So they got fed up. They stopped caring about the game. Eventually they didn't even go for my tosses at all. They just stood there... staring at me. They didn't even try. They were done with me, didn't need-- didn't _want_ me anymore, but they never had. We never even really were friends, and we were never even really a team either. They were with each other, but... not me. So I got benched. My dad never let me live it down."

"Oh," Hinata said softly. "So... back in first year, you were worried that our team would be the same, and that's why you were such a dick?"

Kageyama glared without replying, and Hinata gulped. He needed to watch his words.

"You said you... didn't have any friends?" Hinata tried again after a moment.

Once again, no reply. 

"Wait." Things were beginning to click into place. "So, you invested yourself into these people, even if you were sort of shitty about it." The glare was scalding now. "But you were still invested, right? You cared in your own weird way, and cared a lot, too. Then they turned their back on you. And so... It made you never want to invest the effort like that again. That way you wouldn't get hurt." Hinata spoke slowly as the pieces of the puzzle aligned in his brain. "So that's why you didn't consider us friends. You thought everyone was going to hurt you the same. You were keeping it specifically to team stuff without making the relationships personal." That was it, wasn't it? "Were you scared I'd turn my back on you?"

The resulting emptiness of the room when neither of them spoke was answer enough.

"Kageyama. You know I'd never do that to you, right?"

"Well, how am I supposed to know that!?" Kageyama snapped back venomously.

"I'm telling you now. I'm not going anywhere."

" _You will_."

Hinata startled at the bitterness in Kageyama's voice - it was a dark sort of growl, almost. Kageyama's eyes suddenly went wide, as if he hadn't meant to say that.

"What do you mean, _'I will'?_ Don't make stuff up about me!" Hinata couldn't keep the tone of offense out of his voice. 

"You would if--"

"No, I wouldn't! Stop putting words into my mouth!"

"You don't know anything about me!" Kageyama was shouting now, the feather wand dropping out of his hand to clack onto the floor. The kittens seemed to grow nervous from the outburst, shuffling off to hide under the tiny gap behind the bed. Kageyama looked crushed, his arm trailing out as if to grab them, to keep them there with him by force, but he thought better of it and pulled back, wringing it in and out instead. He cast a longing glance towards them, and lowered his voice. "If you really knew me, you'd leave too."

Okay, that was enough.

"You don't know that at all," Hinata countered, matter-of-fact. "You're actually pretty stupid, huh? _Bakageyama_."

Hinata sat up and shuffled off his bed and onto the floor, where Kageyama was looking up at him with a wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes, clearly pissed off about that last part. Hinata wasn't sure exactly what to do with himself, but as he came up to stand in front of Kageyama, the answer made itself clear to him. He crouched down in front of Kageyama and pulled him in for a hug.

Kageyama flinched away from him. It was so strange, almost as if he were expecting to be _attacked_ rather than held. It just made Hinata feel... sad, for Kageyama.

"What the fuck are you-- Stop--" Kageyama moved to shove him away.

"Listen up, four eyes, I have been trying for weeks to get you to open up to me." Kageyama stilled in his arms. "I realized it when your dad called that one day. I realized that I've never really known you very well at all. I hadn't been putting in the effort. I wasn't there for you in the way I should have been. But I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere. I want to know you."

"But why? I'm..."

"An ass? Yeah, I know."

"My--"

"Your personality sucks, I know that too, but I'm still gonna be here."

"That wasn't what I was going to say, but gee, thanks for making that clear, asshole."

"I mean it. Uh, the part about staying, that is. Not that you're _not_ also an ass with a sucky personality, because you are-- okay gonnastoptalkingnow." Hinata cut himself off when he noticed Kageyama's hands gripping his own pants like a vice. He hadn't returned the hug.

"...Kageyama. Why do you think I'll leave you? I thought I'd learned a lot about you these past few days. What else are you hiding that you think is so awful?"

"I'm not hiding anything. Can we drop this now?" 

"We've already come this far, what--"

"Hinata."

"What do you have to _lose_ \--"

" _Please."_

Hinata shut his mouth, cutting himself off mid breath. Kageyama's voice sounded thin and watery. He had more or less liquefied under Hinata, his arms now drooping limply at his sides, fingers brushing the floor, like all the fight was draining out of him. The kittens had finally emerged from their hiding spot behind the bed, and Tobi was licking at his fingers as if to try to comfort him.

"Alright," Hinata said with no hesitation, pulling back from Kageyama to look at him, really look at him. His face was carefully guarded and expressionless, which looked highly unnatural on his usually scowling face. The face of pure neutrality looked alien on Kageyama - no knit brows, no downward turned mouth, just - nothing. He hadn't returned the hug in any capacity at all, but he also hadn't shoved Hinata off. Looking outside, Hinata noted that the sky was pitch black.

"It's late," said Kageyama with an air of finality. "I should get home."

"You could sleep over if you wanted."

"I'm not even supposed to be here. I snuck out, remember? If my dad--"

"Your dad left though, right? He wouldn't have to know."

"My mom would tell him."

"Hm," Hinata conceded, standing up as Kageyama did. "Alright, I'll walk you to the door then." Then as an afterthought, he added, "and you know you're always welcome here, right? You can come back any time."

Kageyama didn't respond to that.

Kageyama waved goodbye as Hinata saw him off the porch. As Hinata waved back, he couldn't help but feel conflicted by what had just transpired in his room. They had made a lot of progress that day, but Hinata couldn't help that greedy feeling of wanting more. For every question of his that got answered, three more would pop up in its place.

So Hinata made sure to document what he had learned into his notebook, in as much detail as possible, and then went to bed eagerly awaiting the next day when he’d see Kageyama again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter coming is one of my favourites. It contains a hot take that I’m hoping the majority will be on board with.... I’m really excited to share it! From here on out I really like how the chapters have come together. This entire story is basically just two character studies and is quite dialogue heavy. Everything is just these two bouncing off of each other, and the plot is entirely based around their development. I’ve been having a blast! Hope everyone is having fun too so far. Seeya Thursday! <3


	6. Sprout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit by bit, Kageyama starts coming out of his shell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my second favourite chapter in this whole story (beaten only just barely by the chapter right before the epilogue). It contains a very self-indulgent hot take. I hope you guys will be on board.  
> PS. There’s a quote from ATLA hidden in this chapter. Curious if anyone will find it! Answer is in the notes at the bottom.

\- ♠️ -

Sprout

A month passed, and Hinata learned a lot more in this stretch of time.

Things like how Kageyama really didn't seem to have many other hobbies outside of volleyball, except for _one_ , and it was totally and completely out of left field.

And of _all_ of the things for Kageyama to do in his free time, too, this was just outrageous. Hinata could hardly even believe it, and he'd witnessed it first hand.

The day that he found out had cemented itself in Hinata's head. It was early in December and it had already snowed once, but not hard enough for anything to stick to the ground. Kageyama had come over to visit the cats who were beginning to grow quite large and rambunctious by then, but he had forgotten his math textbook at Hinata's house when he left. Hinata knew by then that Kageyama's mother wasn't going to be home until late at night like she always was, and it wasn't like his dad would be there. So Hinata saw no problem in bundling himself up in his winter clothes and heading over to Kageyama's house to drop it off quickly before heading back home.

When he got there, he knocked on the door and waited. No answer. He rang the doorbell. Nobody came. He jiggled the door knob only to find it locked.

Hinata supposed he could have just dropped the textbook on the doormat and shot Kageyama a quick text. He could have given Kageyama a call, even. But, for some reason at that moment, Hinata decided that the best course of action would be to head around the side of the house and try the back patio. He did not know why he thought this was a viable option, but he was doing it.

Kageyama's backyard was small, and mostly covered with garden rather than lawn. A few plants in little ceramic bowls sat on the patio in front of a double glass panel with a sliding door and a bug screen. The plants were looking in rough shape, clearly done growing and being distinctly all leafy and plant-y until the spring. Then Hinata looked up and through the glass door.

The first thing that Hinata was shocked to see was that the small space was filled to the brim with potted plants. The second thing was that Kageyama was standing in his kitchen in a loose fitting T-shirt and _monkey slippers_ , glasses on, earbuds in and nodding his head slowly to a tune that Hinata couldn't hear, surrounded on all sides by potted flowering plants with a tiny watering can and spray bottle in his hand--... 

Hinata felt his jaw drop open. Kageyama was just... just standing there, back turned with his hand sifting through the dirt of a potted plant, picking out dead leaves. He touched the soil gingerly with the pad of a finger, rubbed it between his thumb, and then lifted an arm and sprayed the plant’s leaves with water.

Kageyama Tobio, the smug bastard asshole who was infamous for his shitty personality and rudeness--

He fucking _gardened_.

The scene in front of him was undeniably and irrefutably _charming_ , and Hinata felt his heart flutter in his chest. Hinata couldn't help thinking that flowers suited him. Kageyama turned the slightest bit, not enough to spot Hinata, but enough that Hinata could take note that Kageyama was smiling just the tiniest bit, and his eyebrows were relaxed. He looked focused, but not in the same way that he did on the court. In volleyball, Kageyama's eyes were sharp, calculating, and his face was always set in concentration. This version of Kageyama's focused face was calm and thoughtful. He might almost call it _peaceful_.

Hinata couldn't stop the noise from escaping his mouth, a loud, sharp, " _what!_ " as he tried to process what he was seeing. Kageyama whipped around, eyes wide, and Hinata distinctly remembered seeing the same face that day one month ago in the woods. Like that time, Kageyama's shock was quick to turn into anger.

"Hinata?!" Kageyama's voice was muffled with the barrier of the glass in the way. He stormed forward, ripping the earbuds out of his ear before he was unlocking the door and sliding it open with a heave. "What the fuck are you doing here--"

"You _garden!?_ " Hinata screeched.

"Huh? I-- I don't!"

"You do! I-- You! I just saw you! With-- With the plants! T-t-touching them!" Hinata pointed a trembling finger towards the little watering can that Kageyama's fists were scrunched around, knuckles turning white. Hinata was able to see the red grooves of skin between the contours of his bones before Kageyama moved the watering can behind his back, out of sight, as if that would do anything to save him from Hinata's relentless questioning now. 

"I'm just watering them! They're-- They're my mom's, not mine! ...Shut up!" Kageyama defended himself in a voice that was weirdly shrill for him, cheeks quickly turning red. "Why the fuck are you in my backyard?"

Oh, right. "You left your textbook at my house!"

Kageyama blinked, his face somehow managing to look even angrier. "Seriously? You came here just for _that?_ You could have just given it to me tomorrow instead of fucking _following me home!_ You really _are_ a creep." He muttered the last part, refusing to look into Hinata's eyes.

"I'm sorry!" Hinata offered, wicked grin countering that he was not, in fact, sorry at all.

"I can't believe you came here. What if--"

"What if _what?_ What if your mom saw me? She's at work, dummy, you told me all about her work schedule, remember?"

Kageyama's mouth gaped open like a fish, and he fell silent. Hinata could practically hear the thoughts in his head going, _'oh yeah, I guess I did tell him that'_.

They spent several moments just staring at each other. Kageyama eventually drew the side of his bottom lip into his mouth to chew at it the longer the silence stretched out, which seemed to be some sort of nervous tic of his. So, Kageyama was the type who rescued kittens and watered flowers. Who'd have thought?

"Ugh! Fine, you know what, just-- get in here. You're already here so you might as well come in. It’s… uh, cold out."

Hinata startled, staring back wide-eyed, wondering if it was another trick. "Really?"

"Yeah," He confirmed. Hinata felt lightheaded, rooted to the spot. "Why are you just standing there? Come in before I change my mind." And then, for good measure: "dumbass."

And then Kageyama stepped aside, leaving the door wide open.

Hinata didn't say it out loud, but now that he knew Kageyama's parent's schedule, the reason that Kageyama never otherwise had wanted him over became clear. All of these... these _secrets_ of his that he'd been hiding - Kageyama had been carefully curating an outward image that he presented to other people. The grouchy, self-assured, undauntable and mighty volleyball player who was always cool, always confident... that wasn't the true version of Kageyama, not at all. The true version reared its head only when he was alone (or at least when he thought he was), outside of the watchful eyes of other people. The Kageyama who was kind and soft and, dare he say it, _sensitive_ \- it wasn't that Kageyama was worried about his parents coming over, and _that's_ why he kept Hinata out. More likely was that he had been trying to keep his distance, distance which would keep him cemented as a pillar of complete and utter stability - distance which had slowly been shrinking the past several weeks.

Hinata had stepped through the door, feeling uncharacteristically nervous. It wasn't like it was his first time being in Kageyama’s house, but somehow, the atmosphere was much different this time around. Kageyama began to pad away wordlessly, casting a quick look over his shoulder, Hinata scrambling to remove his shoes and follow. That was when he saw Kageyama with his phone out, pausing the music that he had been playing. Hinata couldn't stop himself from reading the song text as he tapped on his phone, making a mental note to look up the song later and give it a listen. Maybe it would be insightful.

Kageyama's house was bigger than his for sure, although not huge. As they passed through the kitchen, Hinata was greeted by the pristine hallways with the weird, abstract art hanging off of them. Compared to the emptiness of the rest of the house, the kitchen looked the most lived in, Hinata observed. There had been a few dishes by the sink, a loaf of store-bought bread out on the counter, and-- all of those _plants_. Hinata could imagine Kageyama spending a lot of time there - making breakfast, eating an egg on toast in the morning before school, watering those flowers, all sleepy eyed and soft-- okay, it was time to end that train of thought.

Kageyama's room ended up being very plain. There wasn't much furniture in there, and the walls were gray and mostly bare apart from the odd black and white poster. His bed and dresser were black, and there were some books and stray clothes strewn across the floor as well as a rogue barbell, but apart from that it was... quite clean, actually.

They didn't even do much the rest of that day, just sat around and chatted about nothing very important. Volleyball, mostly. The spring Interhigh was coming up. 

But Hinata was in Kageyama's _room_ for the very first time, the place where he spent most of his time outside of volleyball or school. The place where he just existed, the place where he relaxed, slept, got changed-- _oof. Not now, save that thought for later_.

It was pleasant, hanging out like that. Such a small thing, but to Hinata, it meant the world. When he got home later that night, he scribbled down 'has a secret garden' in his little notebook, the list of things he was learning growing every day. He'd looked up that song, too.

There were other things that Hinata learned too, outside of Kageyama's secret hobby ("It's not a _hobby!_ I don't garden, fuck off!").

Things like how bad Kageyama was at giving out praise, but really, Hinata had already known that, more or less. It was as if the thoughts in his head would get all jumbled out on the way out until they were more or less incoherent. He generally would just settle on an awkward "nice job" when it came down to it, but never really went beyond that. And that still was quite rare, _especially_ towards Hinata.

Kageyama was always weirdly dismissive of compliments himself. It was like he couldn't accept that people might genuinely have nice things to say about him, to the point that he would almost seem sort of insulted the more praise he got. Things said in passing like 'good job', or 'nice serve', those were fine. But other types of praise, especially about things unrelated to volleyball, such as 'wow, that's a cool shirt, where'd you get it?' Kageyama would take almost as if he were being made fun of, and then Hinata never saw him wear that shirt ever again. It was alarming, in all honesty, how paranoid he seemed to be about it. And finally, Hinata had the knowledge to understand why. 

Kageyama had grown up in a volatile and toxic environment at home with a father who didn't even seem to like him, and he'd never really had any friends. The people in his circle were constantly talking behind his back, if not outright insulting him to his face. The 'friends' that he'd had betrayed him. Kageyama literally just... didn't know what to do when he was faced with kindness and genuine acceptance.

For all the love of being praised by Kageyama, Hinata had always been just as reluctant to dole out praise to Kageyama as well in the spirit of their rivalry - neither seemed to want to admit out loud that there were traits about the other that they admired. Hinata, in all other circumstances, was an expect flatterer - he was honest to a fault and easily excited, and whenever he witnessed something he deemed to be 'cool', he was quick to let everyone within the near vicinity know about it. Hinata had always been thrilled to go on and on about how amazing Nishinoya was with his receives, how incredible it was that Sawamura was always in the right place to cover the team right when they needed him most, how much better Yamaguchi was getting with his jump float - he even praised Tsukishima more often than he did Kageyama, which was saying a lot, because Hinata also went to great lengths to avoid giving any leverage whatsoever to rude, stick-up-his-butt, bastard ass Tsukishima. But Hinata had been making a point lately to speak his mind around Kageyama more often. 

So, Hinata would try complimenting Kageyama whenever something nice would come to mind.

He gave it a go one day during practice. "You know, Kageyama, I don't care what everyone else says about you. You're actually pretty smart!"

"Excuse me?" Kageyama had growled.

"Pipe down! I'm being serious. You come up with good plays. We'd never have won our last set in that practice game with Nekoma yesterday if it weren't for that plan you came up with, you know, with the synchronized attack, and you being all like _pschoo pschoo pschoo_ with the ball? That was so cool!"

"Uh." Kageyama's jaw worked as he opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. "...Thanks."

Hinata kept at it whenever he could. Here and there a "wow, Kageyama, your jump serve is so cool, you're gonna wipe the floor with Aoba Johsai when we play them again", a peppered "awesome, your sets are getting really really precise, it's almost kind of scary!" elsewhere.

It wasn't long before Kageyama got used to it, and eventually even actually started to reciprocate.

Kageyama had been hovering around him on a break during after-school practice. Hinata had just hit what was, quite frankly, a spectacular spike sent straight to him from Kageyama's expert hands, and he hadn't missed the way Kageyama's eyes had lit up in delight. It was one of Hinata's favourite of Kageyama's expressions, the one full of pride and excitement over one of his nightmare tosses getting struck down into a perfect spike. Now, Kageyama was dancing back and forth awkwardly, shifting his weight from foot to foot to the point where Hinata was wondering if he needed to piss or something. He'd just quirked an eyebrow at him expectantly, feeling briefly hopeful that Kageyama might actually have something nice to say.

"Well?" He prompted. "Are you here to tell me about how great that last spike was or what?"

Kageyama's face was red when he finally gathered his thoughts and ability to speak. "Well, you didn't completely blow it, at least. It was sloppy but it got the job done."

Hinata's shoulders drooped with disappointment, but it wasn't long before he was shouting back, indignant. "What!? That spike was brilliant, what the fuck! Can't you just admit that I did good? Would it kill you to give me a compliment once in a while? Sheesh! You're impossible."

Kageyama's face looked like a tomato, and he scrunched up his nose in irritation. "I _was_ complimenting you, asshole! Fuck you! Fine, guess I'll just keep it to myself next time!" 

He sounded... embarrassed. Hinata snorted.

"Oh my god. Are you serious? _That's_ your idea of a compliment? You're such an ass!"

'Fuck off! Here I am trying to be nicer to you, and you just blow me off-- I hope you choke on a meat bun, you piece of shit!"

Hinata couldn't help but laugh, and he laughed hard. Well, it certainly would have been weird for Kageyama to give him a compliment that might actually imply that he found Hinata's skills admirable in any capacity whatsoever, anyways. "You suck, Kageyama. Seriously, you're the worst. But thanks anyways."

It was hard and could be frustrating at times, but the rewards were entirely worth it. Kageyama began to grow accustomed to the clap on his shoulder and Hinata's enthusiastic smile as he chirped out a compliment. Kageyama would smile back, a watery-looking excuse for a grin, complete with the down turned eyebrows that made him look like an axe murderer. Kageyama's face wasn't quite built to support so much smiling, so it always looked kind of off. Hinata loved it though, and he finally knew Kageyama well enough to know that he was genuinely happy, even if he didn't show it like the average person, and even if Kageyama wouldn't admit it.

There were still weird moments though - mostly when too much touching got involved. Like that _one_ time when Kageyama was tossing to him on an evening when they hadn't had regular practice. Hinata had hit a particularly good spike, so Kageyama moved to ruffle his hair on the side of his head. It had felt really, really good, so without really thinking, Hinata had lifted his own hand up to rest on top of Kageyama's. This had spooked Kageyama for some reason, because suddenly he was pulling back like he had been burned, and making some excuse about needing to go home.

No, Kageyama didn't like touching all that much.

(This made Hinata want to touch him more.)

That wasn't the only time, either. Hinata could see it sometimes in the corners of his vision - a hand, reaching out towards him. When he'd turn around, sure, Kageyama would be there - but there at a distance, hand hanging awkwardly like he'd pulled it back at the last moment. There was another day when they'd been tossing in the evening again, and Kageyama had-- had touched him.

It wasn't particularly unusual, necessarily, to be _touched_ by Kageyama - he wasn't afraid to smack Hinata on the back of the head when he was getting too fired up, or kick him in the shins just for the sake of it, and sometimes when they really started to get on each other's nerves, they'd tussle until someone got in between them to break them up. This touch was different. It had been... kind.

He'd looked at Hinata with soft eyes, for just one moment. It was the same look he'd give to the cats - hooded eyes, relaxed mouth, eyebrows that weren't particularly gentle or anything, but weren't overly harsh, either. Hinata had seen it. He'd seemed to have done it without even knowing what he was doing, hand reaching out to brush against Hinata's neck.

It was affection, plain and simple. And Hinata had to just go and ruin it by getting too giddy and squealing about it.

Kageyama had suddenly seemed to come to his senses, yanking his hand back, hands opening and closing into fists at his sides. He'd left suddenly again, blurting out some other excuse and leaving Hinata with an empty feeling in his gut, but also leaving his heart fluttering.

His hands had been kind, if only just for a moment.

After that, Kageyama had been weirdly distanced for a few days, not touching Hinata or letting himself be touched at all. Not even to smack him on the head when he said stupid things, not even to kick him on the backs of his knees to make him trip. Not even to tussle when Hinata got up in his face about how Kageyama had been avoiding him. He'd barely reacted, just scowled a bit and moved around him to walk off, not even shoving him aside.

Hinata had been worried that they were moving backwards, but slowly, the tension between them relaxed, bit by bit. One morning they'd been setting up the net in the gym, talking mindlessly - Hinata had been securing the poles, and without looking, he'd gestured to the hand that he'd thought Kageyama had been holding the bolts in.

"Can you pass that?"

There was a brief moment of hesitation, and Hinata had been about to turn around and check if he was zoning out or something, until there was a sudden and significant weight in his hand, too heavy to be bolts. And too _warm_.

Hinata stared down - Kageyama's hand was placed in his own - and then blinked up at him. Kageyama blinked back. 

"Oh my god," Hinata said slowly. "I meant the bolts, Kageyama. The _bolts_. You _dolt!_ "

Kageyama's face had heated up, and then his palm had opened up - the bolts had indeed been clasped in his grip all along - he'd definitely been spacing out, but what about, Hinata could only speculate.

So that had been weird.

Kageyama still wouldn't let Hinata ruffle his hair, on the rare occasion that he was bent over enough that Hinata could reach. He still avoided letting Hinata touch him in general, as much as possible, but at least things had gotten easier after the bolt incident.

Another few weeks passed, and Kageyama's seventeenth birthday came and went - the team had held a surprise birthday party for him, Hinata having dragged him forcibly to the restaurant where everyone was waiting for him. Hinata didn't miss the way the corners of his mouth raised the tiniest bit, imperceptible to anyone who wasn't so diligent about noting every single one of Kageyama's quirks.

Kageyama came home with Hinata afterwards to visit the cats. It was in the privacy of Hinata's bedroom that he gave Kageyama his birthday present. The last thing Hinata had wanted to do was embarrass him by giving it to him in front of the team.

Actually, it was just something simple. Extremely simple, in fact, maybe even embarrassingly so. But Hinata had worked hard to bring his idea to fruition, doing his research and even asking his mom for help. He'd had the idea some few days after his discovery of Kageyama's secret hobby, and he'd known he'd need to get started immediately in order to have it ready in time.

He'd bought some seeds from a gardening store and planted one into a tiny little terracotta pot and painted a little goofy looking sun onto it in acrylic paint, but the real challenge came in encouraging the little seed to sprout. It hadn't exactly grown much at all by the time it came to give it to Kageyama, but Hinata felt proud nonetheless when out popped a tiny little sunflower seedling. He'd kept up with watering it, made sure he placed it in the best dirt he could find, put the teensiest tiniest amount of fertilizer in lest he burn it (because apparently plants could get burns? What?) and no he didn't really understand what he was doing, but he'd made something grow and figured Kageyama would know what to do with it from there.

Hinata had felt embarrassed as he presented it to him - it was absurdly simple, but Kageyama had never seemed to be too fond of large displays of affection or of people buying him expensive things, and truth be told, Hinata wouldn't have known what to get him anyways. But he hadn't wanted to just give him _nothing_. So it was with an embarrassed sideways glance that Hinata offered Kageyama the tiny little sunflower sprout, saying that he had hoped that a _sun_ flower might help cheer him up, because seriously, how could one singular person be filled up with so much sheer and unadulterated grouchiness? Maybe the sunflower could be there to greet and smile at him when Hinata couldn't.

Kageyama had just looked confused. He wasn't angry or happy or anything really, just staring at the plant with a funny expression on his face. Hinata had already begun to deflate by the time Kageyama finally spoke up.

"You grew me a sunflower?"

"Yeah! Well, it's not really a sunflower yet, but it will be! I thought maybe you'd... like it. Or maybe you wouldn't but you'd still have it and... I don't know! I just thought it might be nice? Like we grew it together. If you don't like it that's cool, I can just give it to my mom or something," Hinata blabbered on, unsure of what to do with himself.

"It'll probably just die if you keep it here. I'm surprised you got it to sprout at all." Kageyama sniffed, making a grab for the little plant, rotating it carefully in his hand to examine it. "So I guess I'll just have to take it home, since you went through all the trouble of growing it. It'd be cruel to leave him-- err, it-- in your care any longer."

Kageyama had accepted the gift.

_He was going to take the plant_. Kageyama's cheeks were red, and despite his barbed words, Hinata felt elated. It was a pretty roundabout way to say that he liked the gift, and Hinata hoped he was right in his interpretation that Kageyama most definitely _did_ like it. Without really thinking, Hinata rushed forward to gather up Kageyama's large form into his arms and _squeeze._ He smiled as he pressed his face into Kageyama’s chest - he really was tall, the top of Hinata’s head only barely able to surpass Kageyama’s collarbone. Kageyama's arms flew out in surprise, but he was careful not to let the plant tip over. Hinata realized he was probably overstepping his boundaries - receiving a gift in the first place was probably overwhelming to Kageyama already, but now he was invading his personal space. His grip began to loosen, Hinata readying to pull away before Kageyama inevitably shoved him off, but then--

But then, arms were encircling him as well.

_Kageyama was hugging back._

Hinata could feel the light pressure on his head as Kageyama rested his cheek there carefully, hesitantly nestling into Hinata’s hair. He felt rather than saw Kageyama take a deep breath, his chest rising and falling with a quiet exhale. Hinata's eyes had grown as round as saucers, and he'd looked over to make eye contact with Tobi, who slowly blinked at him. 

' _I love you_ ,' Kageyama's doppelganger was saying with his eyes. Hinata slowly blinked back, but more in bewilderment than anything else.

The hug didn't last too long, Kageyama being the first one to pull away and clear his throat. Hinata just beamed at him, opting not to say anything, worried that speaking would result in an even more embarrassed Kageyama. Embarrassed Kageyama, while a delight to witness, was prone to explosive fits where he'd spew out every insult he could think of in an attempt to salvage his dignity. So Hinata let him be.

As they'd settled down for a few rounds of Super Smash, Shou coming over to settle into Kageyama's lap, Hinata caught Kageyama looking back at the sprout, sitting on Hinata's desk until the moment it would be carted off to its new home.

In Hinata's head, the song that Kageyama had been listening to through his earbuds that one day in his kitchen came back to him. It was some dreamy-sounding American indie song that Hinata had gone home and looked up. It was already pleasant on the first listen, the song being surprisingly soft for what he'd expected Kageyama would be listening to, but then Hinata had run the lyrics through a translator app, and everything about it was suddenly just so much... _fuller_ and more vibrant than ever. Ever since he had, the song had grown on him greatly. He liked to listen to it on repeat when he daydreamed, downloading it right to his own phone right from the second listen.

_Affection._

_I know that you say I get mean when I'm drinking, but_

_then again sometimes I get really sweet, so_

_What does it mean if I tell you to go fuck yourself?_

_Or if I say that you're beautiful to me_

_It's affection, always_

_Ooh; you're gonna see it someday_

_My attention for you_

_Even if it's not what you need_

Hinata felt giddy, and he couldn’t wipe the dopey smile off of his face no matter how hard he tried. He belonged here, right at Kageyama’s side - he was always going to be there for Kageyama, Hinata promised himself then. And as long as Kageyama would tolerate him, nothing ever could have made Hinata want to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You know, Zuko. I don't care what everyone else says about you, you're pretty smart.”  
> That’s the hidden quote! Thanks for playing lol! ^^
> 
> The song lyrics at the end are from the song Affection by Cigarettes After Sex. There will be a total of three references to songs by CAS throughout this whole fic as a recurring motif. Not to give anyone supplementary homework but I do recommend looking them up when they come up! Very sweet and soft songs that have been carefully cherry picked to support the chapters they appear in.
> 
> I also feel like I need to explain the gardening headcanon hot take since it probably seems kind of crazy, but here's my idea: I had been thinking of Kageyama and Hinata being old and retired, what would they do? In my own timeline in my head I imagine somewhere in his professional career, Kageyama would eventually get a wrist injury (nerve damage or something) and be unable to play in tournaments and stuff from then on, so he'd become a coach and also start looking at other hobbies too. I imagine he'd grow his own vegetable garden then and have an orchard which he is very meticulous about caring for, and he gets really really into it. Just old man Kageyama out pruning some blackberry bushes and sharing the fruit with oldie Hinata is too much for my poor heart. I think younger Kageyama would definitely have an interest in botanics, but nowhere really to vent it, so he goes ham on his mom's plants to the point where they sorta just become his plants. Maybe I'm nuts but I'm gonna stand by my headcanon. Hope it doesn't seem too out of character compared to what we get from the source material. I just sorta saw this grouchy boy and went "it's free real estate" and here we are. This is part of what makes this story so self-indulgent.
> 
> See you guys soon! Next update is Saturday morning ^o^


	7. Jealous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata lets himself believe.

\- ♠️ -

Jealous

"He let you hug him!?"

Hinata had never expected there would be a day that he'd be discussing his... _situation_ surrounding Kageyama with fucking Oikawa Tooru, of all the goddamn people in the world to run into in the fucking cat food aisle of a local pet store.

They were just... sitting at a fountain, now. They'd run into each other, had a brief altercation, Kageyama had come up in a heated conversation about who was gonna kick who's ass in the next game, and even though Oikawa had long since graduated, he was still adamant that his juniors would kick Karasuno’s ass and blah blah gripe gripe - but then Hinata suddenly found himself asking if the two of them could _talk_.

Oikawa knew Kageyama, and knew him well. Oikawa was also far enough removed from their day-to-day life that he could be a surprisingly good confidant, and Hinata hadn't known how desperate he was to talk about everything that had been going on until the opportunity had presented itself on a golden platter. So Hinata had spilled nearly everything - his schemes, his crush, the kittens - everything on his end excluding maybe a few of the more personal details revolving around Kageyama. He didn’t tell Oikawa any of Kageyama’s secrets, though - he had enough sense to keep those to himself. When he’d finished, Oikawa had let out a big, exaggerated sigh through blown up cheeks.

"I won't lie, shorty, I'm not invested in the outcome of this situation, so I can't guarantee that my advice would even mean anything to you. I'd say tell him, but on the other hand, I can't see Kageyama liking men. Sorry." Oikawa sounded genuine, and it made Hinata's heart sink.

"I figured that," Hinata replied glumly.

"But then again," Oikawa continued thoughtfully, "he let you hug him. Hell, he hugged you _back_. I'm not sure how much you've learned about him by now, or how much you know about his past, but... that's pretty monumental."

Hinata _did_ know, but he still enjoyed having the validation. "You really think so?"

"The Tobio I knew was a stuck up, selfish little boy who was both desperate for others' approval, yet at the same time, was so full of himself that he wouldn't take advice or help from anyone. Everyone hated him, so he hated them back with everything he had in him. He hated showing weakness, and as a result, he became completely closed off." Oikawa hummed, tapping his finger to his chin. "To think, it was you of all people who got him to come out of his shell. I hadn't expected that. Little Tobio has grown up."

"Well," Hinata interjected, "it wasn't even really me. It's just that I took in two kittens when he couldn't keep them himself. So he comes over for them, not me. I'm just sorta there as an afterthought." Hinata laughed, but it sounded hollow.

"Don't be so sure." Oikawa was looking at him with an unreadable expression. Hinata looked back at him hopefully. "I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. He was already changing before that, and I guarantee that you were a big instigator there."

"Instant gator?"

"You caused him to change, Hinata." Oikawa sighed, then thought for a moment, as if trying to figure out how to phrase his next sentence in the simplest possible way. "Look. Let's say you didn't have kittens as leverage. There still would have been countless other opportunities for you to connect with him. It was a lucky break, sure, but you can't just say that everything that's happened is only as a result of finding _kittens_. If you did, then well, maybe you really are stupid. That, or you have a wild insecurity streak," Oikawa laughed. 

Man, he really didn't like Oikawa that much. Arrogant bastard. But he was a good listener, and Hinata could begrudgingly admit that his advice wasn’t terrible - that, and he held at least some admiration for him as a person as well as a volleyball player. It would be hard not to.

"Anyways," Oikawa went on. "Kittens, seriously? He's soft for _kittens?_ That's rich. Maybe I'll text him about it to piss him off."

"Please don't!" Hinata gasped. "He can't know I talked to you! He'd be so pissed!"

"Boo." Oikawa pouted, the look making Hinata feel irritated. "It's such great blackmail, though. But if you insist, I guess." He shrugged. "Anyways, I gotta get going. Good talk, I guess, and good luck. I hope it works out for you one way or another."

"Right! Good talk. And thanks, Oikawa. You're... actually not such a bad guy after all." Hinata flashed him a genuine smile as Oikawa stood up, gathering his bags. He just looked back with a funny look on his face.

"Yeah, well. Whatever. Glad to help, I guess. See you around, pipsqueak." He turned to walk off, but turned over to call back over his shoulder. "Listen, though. If he let you touch him like that, well... maybe there's hope for him yet. So hang in there, short stuff."

Short (and irritating) as the conversation was, it had been an eye-opening one.

As for Kageyama himself, he was still coming over nearly every day.

Hinata was thrilled that his mother and sister had taken such a liking to him - Hinata had been worried that Kageyama's grouchiness would be a deal breaker in the arrangement. To Hinata's surprise, Kageyama was actually, in fact, very polite - at least as far as adults were concerned. As for his sister, she had taken an immediate shine to him, clinging to his leg when he'd get through the door and begging to play hide and seek. Kageyama was shockingly patient with her, never raising his voice and doing his best to at least try to hide his discomfort and embarrassment when she'd press a big wet kiss to his cheek and run off giggling. He'd be sitting there, scarlet red with Hinata laughing his ass off next to him, poking fun at what a serious softie Kageyama was until Kageyama would smack him on the back of the head. Of everyone that Kageyama knew, he was by far the most rude towards Hinata, but Hinata liked to take it as a declaration of secret affection.

Then there was the matter of the cats.

In two months of having lived with them, both he and Kageyama had learned a lot and done their research. The two were both growing up into fine little devils, Shou especially, who was always up to no good, digging through the trash and terrorizing Tobi at every given opportunity. Tobi was quite aloof and it took a lot to get him to purr, and when he did, it was so quiet that Hinata had to press his ear to his stomach to hear it - Shou, on the other hand, could be heard purring from across the room, and he'd start up like a well oiled motor if Kageyama even so much as looked at him funny. Shou's sticky-up fur had not calmed down at all the more he grew, and was longer and wilder than ever. Tobi was growing up to be much more streamlined in appearance, with short, dense fur and a sleek black coat. Both the cats' eyes had turned from blue into a more subdued yellow-green, Hinata was astounded to find, but he still found the resemblance of the two cats to Kageyama and himself quite uncanny.

What was most interesting, however, was that the two cats had made clear who their individual favourite person was. Shou was overly in love with Kageyama, following him around the house and sulking when he wasn't around, although the hyper kitten never did stay downtrodden for long. Tobi, on the other hand, seemed to like Hinata, or at least Hinata thought he did. He wasn't as cuddly as Shou was by any means, preferring to keep himself at a distance, but he would follow Hinata around wherever he went and sleep at the foot of his bed, facing away but making sure that at least his tail was touching some part of Hinata's body. Tobi liked to slowly blink at him from across the room. Hinata would slowly blink back. It translated to _'I love you'_ in cat language, at least according to some article that he’d read online.

Kageyama was still as gentle with them as ever. Shou would be lounging in his lap on his back with his belly exposed, his absolute favourite spot to be, looking positively blissful as Kageyama tenderly stroked him under the chin and rubbed circles into the fur on his stomach. Hinata had once tried the same thing with Tobi and had received a scratch on the back of the hand for his trouble. Kageyama was so soft with the cats - those dexterous fingers of his were expertly controlled under the tabby kitten's fragile little jaw, and Hinata had noticed himself staring longingly on more than one occasion. Shou was a very loud purrer, too - it was as if he were almost rubbing it right in Hinata’s face just how damn good it felt. Why couldn't Kageyama be gentle with _him_ like that? But no, Kageyama had to be an ass at all times, always having to smack Hinata or shove him around.

Looking at Shou right in that moment though was making Hinata feel...

Well, let's just say he wouldn't have minded if it were him in that lap instead. 

Kageyama had even caught him a few times, quirking a brow at him as Hinata frantically recoiled to look at literally anything that wasn’t Kageyama.

There was a day where a dam seemed to break though for both of them.

Kageyama had called him on it one day.

"You're jealous," he'd said simply.

"Excuse me?"

"You're excused," Kageyama returned smugly. God damn it, that was supposed to be Hinata's clever line. That bastard little thief. "You're jealous of the cats."

Hinata laughed, incredulous, rolling over on his bed to be able to face Kageyama better. Hinata tried to play off the accusation as a joke, but he was unfortunately aware of how defensive and huffy the noise was. "I am not."

"You are." Hinata wanted to wipe that self-satisfied look right off of Kageyama's face. "Let's see," he went on, tapping a finger to his chin like he was thinking hard, milking the situation for all it was worth. "You're always trying to touch me. Actually, you're always trying to get me to touch you too, if we're laying out all of our cards on the table. Planting yourself in front of me until I pat your head like a little lost puppy. So then..." He hummed, pretending to be deep in thought. "Then you see me touching the cats and get jealous. That's why you stare at me and Shou-chan like we stole your meat bun. Am I right?"

He looked so fucking pleased with himself. Hinata wanted to punch the look right off his stupidly pretty face, or kiss him on the mouth to shut him up. Hinata was too grouchy to even make fun of Kageyama’s cutesy little nickname for Shou.

He decided then that he needed to say something before things got even more out of hand. Hinata’s face was beet red, and he willed himself not to stammer. "I just think," he began, so far so good, "that you could stand to be a little n-n-nicer." 

God damn it, he'd stuttered.

But then again - he didn't need to justify himself to Kageyama; stupid, dumb, gross Kageyama of all people! Here Hinata was, trying to wrangle in his stupid, gross crush, and Kageyama just had to barge in there and make it worse by calling him out. "I mean!" Hinata continued, "you're always hitting me! And insulting me. I do good in practice and you're like, 'uh huh huh, I'm Kageyama, I'm six feet tall and better than you, get on my level you dumbass idiot, I'm gonna smack you on the head now because I'm just so emotionally constipated and can't express my feelings worth shit--'"

Something bounced off his head, leaving a light sting in its wake. Kageyama had just thrown an eraser at him. 

"Ouch!" He squeaked, hands raising up to clasp his forehead, before he pointed an accusatory finger right back at the culprit. "See what I mean!? Proof! Right there! You're mean and I'm _right!_ "

"Shut up, dumbass, you're being too loud."

"Why bring it up anyways!?" Hinata flashed back, getting louder anyways out of spite. "What am I even supposed to say to that? That I wish I was a cat so you'd be a little nicer to me?"

"You wish you were a cat?" Kageyama snickered, clearly enjoying himself. The sight at least relieved Hinata of the bulk of his irritation.

"Maybe I do!" He responded hotly.

Shou hopped off of Kageyama's lap as Kageyama moved to stand up, clearly disgruntled about being displaced from his favourite spot. As Kageyama ambled over towards him, Hinata braced himself.

"What are you doing? Why are you coming over here, you oaf? Shoo! Attacking a man when he's relaxing on his bed is foul play-- Eek!" Hinata let out a shrill squeak as he was dragged by the arms right off the bed. "I'm being attacked! Mayday, Mayday, SOS, I'm being murdered, help me--"

"Oh my god, shut the fuck up," Kageyama grumbled as he lugged Hinata's flailing body onto and across the floor, before plopping himself down again, and hoisting Hinata's head onto his lap.

Hinata looked up, startled by the change in view. He met Kageyama's blue eyes and started screaming.

Kageyama at least had the mind to look horrified at this, slapping his hand down across Hinata's mouth to muffle the sound. "Hinata, I swear to god, if you don't shut that stupid face of yours I'm gonna-- EUGHH!!” He recoiled in disgust. “Did you just fucking _lick me!?_ I try to do something nice for you and you-- for fuck's sake, _that's it,_ you're _dead_ \--"

Hinata's life flashed before his eyes as Kageyama squeezed the side of his head like he would a volleyball to check its pressure level. He was too young to die, he was only seventeen, he still had so much left to live for--

Wait, what was that last thing?

Hinata stopped kicking his legs out and just looked up at Kageyama, who was squishing the living daylights out of his face.

"What'd yoo shay?" He asked through smooshed lips.

Kageyama eased off the pressure finally. "What?"

"I said, what'd you say?" He repeated. Kageyama stared down at him, and Hinata finally became distinctly aware of their position. He was sprawled out on his back in front of Kageyama, his head resting comfortably in Kageyama's lap, who was bent over him to meet him eye to eye. Hinata blinked in confusion. "You said you wanted to do something nice for me. I heard it."

"For fuck's sake," Kageyama swore. "Dumbass. You make everything so difficult."

Hinata dimly registered that Kageyama's fingers were shifting through his hair - not pulling, not yanking, just threading through slowly.

Gently.

Hinata blinked up at him in confusion from his position of head resting on Kageyama's lap. Kageyama's cheeks were pink, and his eyes weren't meeting Hinata's anymore.

_I_ am _dead, aren't I? There's no way this is happening._

But it _was._

Slowly, very slowly, Hinata began to relax and eventually even started to _enjoy_ himself. His dreams had been right. Kageyama's hands really were gentle, and those long fingers with their calloused pads felt perfect as they trailed against his scalp, like they were made just for this purpose. Hinata heard himself sigh contentedly without even having realized that he was making the noise - he had no idea what had prompted this, but he wasn't about to look a gift Kageyama in the mouth (because surely his thoughts would go straight to the raunchy territory, and he was determined that no, he wouldn't read too far into this situation, even if his heart was threatening to thump itself to death).

He wasn't sure how long he spent laying there - it could have been an hour or maybe less than a minute, just getting lost in blissful thoughts centred around Kageyama's kind hands stroking him as if he were a cat. He peeked one eye open to make eye contact with Shou, who was squinting at him like Hinata had just stolen the world out from under him, or worse, like Hinata had stolen _his_ meat bun. Hinata made a mental note to make it up to him later with plenty of treats.

Hinata peeked through his one eye up at Kageyama. Jet black hair hung downwards, framing Kageyama’s face like a halo, glowing almost blue under the fluorescent lights of Hinata’s bedroom. Hinata watched, feeling mesmerized when it fluttered slightly as Kageyama tilted his head a small fraction. Hinata wondered what that hair would feel like under his own fingertips - he’d never been permitted to touch it. Would it be soft, or coarse? Was it as thick as it looked? Would Kageyama melt underneath his hand like Hinata was melting under Kageyama’s? Would he make contented little noises as he leaned into it, and if so, what would his face look like as he made them?

Kageyama appeared to be zoning out, his eyes hooded and sleepy, lost in his own thoughts. Hinata's heart swelled dangerously with affection, leaning further into the touch, torn between wanting those fingers to keep touching him like this forever and the desire to intertwine his fingers with Kageyama’s. Hinata didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he’d just left them clasped together on his chest. He wished he could touch Kageyama too, but the longer he laid there, the hazier the thoughts became. He became dimly aware of one of Kageyama’s hands wandering downwards towards Hinata’s neck, rubbing him under his chin and tracing the length of his jaw with a thumb. Hinata just barely managed to suppress a hum of contentment, but the moment that Kageyama's hands moved down further to explore the flesh of his neck, fingers grazing across his pulse point, was when Hinata lost it and _groaned_.

The sound seemed to reverberate in the empty room, and Kageyama's motions came to an abrupt halt as Hinata stiffened, eyes snapping all the way open. Wearily, he glanced all the way up, vaguely terrified at what he would find etched onto Kageyama's face. Hinata had taken this good moment and just... just totally trashed it and made it weird, Kageyama was going to kill him, he was going to--

Kageyama was staring down at him with an entirely new emotion plastered on his face, almost like he was seeing him for the first time. There was no trace of anger there whatsoever, just an intense and unidentifiable stare that pierced Hinata through the chest and made him squirm.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?" Hinata tried to do damage control before this got any worse, pointedly not acknowledging the lewd sound that had just slithered out of his mouth.

This snapped Kageyama out of his reverie. "I'm just taking a good long look at how stupid your face looks right now. Which is _very_. Uh, stupid. You're stupid."

_What was that?_ That was all he had to say? Hinata had just moaned with Kageyama's hands on him and he was just... fine with that? Let alone that stammering insult - the only conclusion that Hinata was able to come to was that Kageyama was actually _flustered_.

...And Hinata _loved_ how it looked on him.

But of _course_ he was flustered, this was his first time giving out affection so freely to anyone in the history of ever, probably. Hinata's thoughts briefly flashed back to his conversation with Oikawa from the other day. This made Hinata feel better and worse at the same time. He had told himself he wouldn't read too far into it, but here he was, desperately searching for evidence that could mean that this situation was more than just platonic, that it was more, more--...

He wouldn't let himself finish the thought. He couldn't. There was just no way.

_'I can't see Kageyama liking men. Sorry.'_ Oikawa’s words felt heavy in the back of his mind.

Hinata yanked himself forward into a sitting position, shaking out his hair and blowing air through his lips to make a bubbling noise, before turning back to Kageyama, who was sitting still with his hands still raised in their petting position. He just looked generally confused.

"That felt great!" Hinata piped up to fill the empty room. "Thanks for the head massage, Kageyama!" He beamed one of his best smiles at the boy, who blinked a few times, before seeming to gather himself. Finally, the self-consciousness came to settle around him, several beats later than what Hinata had been expecting.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," he spat, but the words lacked their usual venom.

Hinata just grinned at him.

Looking back on it, something very subtle, imperceptible almost, had changed about Kageyama from that day going forward.

Kageyama had never enjoyed being touched. He'd almost seemed to have a crisis about it at one point, back a few weeks ago. But ever since then, Kageyama almost gave the impression that he was _looking_ for excuses to touch Hinata. A hand on his shoulder to get his attention, arms brushing when they passed by each other, knees that just barely touched when they sat together at lunch...

...It made Hinata’s head hurt.

But then again, it also felt great, so it was a double edged blade.

For the first time in a while, Hinata allowed himself to relish in the hopeful feeling that was blooming in his chest. Maybe there _could_ be a chance for him after all.

The surge of hope inside him was almost too much for his heart to handle, but then again, only almost. For the first time in weeks, Hinata let himself believe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning, everyone! Kageyama’s really starting to open up now! Let’s see how far we can push them. There’s still lots to come out if you catch my drift ;)
> 
> Next update is Monday. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend! We're over halfway there already, can you believe it? This has all been so much fun that I've been mulling over making a sequel. I've got a few working ideas but we'll see closer to the end of this little story. ^w^ The reception has just been so great and I've actually been having such a blast, I've never felt so happy to be writing before! It makes me want to do more. But we'll just have to see.


	8. Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata wants to be special.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again if I’ve gotten the Japanese schooling system wrong with their ages. If so I humbly ask that you go with it. ;w;
> 
> Viewer discretion advised for this chapter for parental abuse and mild mentions of violence.

\- ♠️ -

Special

In the dark, Kageyama's hands were reaching out. Hinata did the only thing he could think of in that moment and held Kageyama's hands in his own, fingers intertwined. In his sleep, Kageyama sighed quietly and seemed to relax.

Ever since Kageyama had learned the true joys of being touched by a gentle hand, he seemed to subconsciously seek it out whenever he felt alone. Even in the dead of the night, Kageyama’s hands would search for him.

It was summertime and they were back at the training camp with the volleyball team. It was the middle of the night, but here he was, laying wide awake in his sleeping bag next to Kageyama, who was thoroughly zonked out, but reaching out just the same. They were third years now as of April, and Hinata had just had his eighteenth birthday, right on the summer solstice. He still found it weird that he was older than Kageyama, even if it was only by six months.

The training camp was the only opportunity that they had to sleep over. Hinata privately thought it was a shame that the whole entire rest of the volleyball team had to be sleeping in the same room, but scolded himself for the thought promptly.

Hinata had also come to accept a new trait of his own since last fall. 

He was _definitely_ attracted to boys.

Maybe it was obvious in hindsight. Straight boys didn't have recurring dreams about dating their friends, and if they did, then they probably didn't also then daydream about it willingly in their spare time, or return to those fantasies whenever left alone and away from their person of interest for too long. It was one of Hinata's favourite guilty pleasures, daydreaming about Kageyama.

So yeah. He liked boys. Girls too. Anyone, really. 

But Kageyama was just on another level altogether in his mind.

With the changing of the seasons had also come an opportunity for Hinata to breach one of his favourite topics - on the bus on the way to the camp, Hinata had taken his chance. He had brought an orange with him, the smell of citrus penetrating the air after he'd peeled it. Without a word, he'd been giving every other slice that he peeled apart to Kageyama, who took them happily whenever they were passed. They'd been sitting peacefully, looking out the window, sharing earbuds and sharing fruit - another one of Kageyama's soft songs was playing. 

_Apocalypse._

_Got the music in you baby,_

_tell me why_

_You’ve been locked in here forever_

_and you just can’t say goodbye_

_When you’re all alone,_

_I will reach for you_

_When you’re feeling low,_

_I will be there too_

During a lull in the song, Hinata spoke up. "How's your garden?"

"Idiot-- It's not _my_ garden! And it's not even a garden at all. It's just some plants!"

"How's your _not garden_ that you regularly and lovingly maintain?"

"I literally just water them!"

"You were totally patting the dirt in that pot that one time."

"I was checking the absorption of water in the soil. If the drainage is bad it'll get root rot."

"See, I have no idea what that means. You just proved my point."

"Fuck off," Kageyama growled out. Hinata let the silence hang for a moment, as he had learned to do. If given the opportunity, Kageyama would continue a conversation of his own volition if given the time and patience.

After rubbing his thigh for a good several seconds, he spoke up again. "...They're all on the porch now. The sunflower is fully blooming. It likes being in the ground."

"Nice!" Hinata didn't really care about plants at all, but he cared about literally anything that came out of Kageyama's mouth. Kageyama was yawning? Incredible. Kageyama was declaring himself hungry and grabbing a snack? Amazing. Kageyama was stating that he needed to go to the toilet? Godspeed, you wicked tall-ass bastard. "No more threats of frost, right? I bet those are some happy plants. I'm glad the sunflower is happy!"

Kageyama flashed him a withering glance, seemingly irritated by Hinata's attempt to engage with a subject he clearly didn't know anything about. "Uh... sure. Whatever, dumbass."

Hinata adored the boy he had come to know by chance over the past two years. Kageyama Tobio, the prodigy volleyball player. Kageyama, the grouchy boy with a sinister face and a bad attitude. Kageyama, the boy who fed and cared for stray kittens, the boy who wore glasses when he was winding down in the privacy of his own home. The boy who was so sensitive to rejection that it ate him up inside, the boy with the fire in his eyes when he set his mind to a task, the boy who was gentle with animals, and who cared for his plants with kind hands. The boy who had grown up practically alone and unloved and had only just recently learned that _yes_ , it was okay to be the boy who did all of these things, and that it was something to be celebrated rather than mocked.

The boy who was so volatile and explosive with his anger was the same boy who was so gentle and careful with Hinata when he was in his arms.

Oh yeah. Hugs were a new development in the past few months too. So that was a thing.

A lot had happened in just the past few weeks.

Most notably, that one night that Kageyama had suddenly appeared at Hinata's door around midnight in early June, calling his cellphone over and over until the buzzing finally woke Hinata up so Kageyama could ask to be let in. Hinata had obeyed in a daze.

Standing at the door, Kageyama had been huffing and puffing, looking unmistakably upset with red eyes and what looked like the beginnings of a bruise on his jaw. Without a word, Hinata had stepped aside to let him in, and grabbed a pack of ice from the freezer that he wrapped in a towel before the two of them made their way upstairs.

His dad had been home and they had been fighting well into the night. When things finally got heated to a breaking point, his dad had punched him in the jaw, and at that point Kageyama had bolted out the front door. The argument had been something about volleyball, something about Kageyama's future, something about what a disappointment Kageyama was to their household - Hinata did his best to keep up with Kageyama's ramblings while trying to shrug off his sleepy haze.

“Are… are you okay? Does it hurt?” Hinata asked, unable to stop himself from staring at the redness that was visible even in the low light, and was slowly beginning to take on a purplish hue.

Kageyama moved the packet of ice away from his face. “I’m fine. It just stings a little. The ice helps.”

“But--”

_“It’s fine,”_ Kageyama spoke again, voice stiff. He seemed to dislike all of the fussing about his jaw, so Hinata decided to leave it for the moment and move on.

"I don't get it," said Hinata, trying to keep his voice down so as not to wake his mom or sister. "Why is he so... so worked up about you playing _volleyball?_ It's just a sport, what's so terrible about it? Volleyball can earn scholarships. Most parents would like it if their kid was doing extracurriculars."

"Yeah, well not my parents. Not my dad," Kageyama muttered. 

"Why does he hate it so much?"

Kageyama didn't respond at first, until Hinata prompted him again.

"Kageyama, _talk to me_. It's okay. I'm your friend, and you can tell me things."

There was another beat of silence, before he sighed, sounding defeated.

"Do you remember," Kageyama began hesitantly, which sounded very strange compared to how abrasive he usually was, "when we had that conversation last fall about you eventually getting fed up with me? And... leaving?"

"Yeah, kind of. And I told you basically that it was bullshit?"

"Yeah, well, it still applies," Kageyama said quietly.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me." Hinata slapped a hand to his face, which at least forced him to wake up fully, finally. "I told you, I'm your friend, Kageyama. Your _best_ friend. Do you really think I'd be that shitty?"

"There's things about me that you don't know yet. ...Things that you might not like."

"Okay, first of all, not knowing things about you has so far made me more interested in being around you, so jot that down. Second," he paused to collect his thoughts for a moment, "second-- You're already an ass. You're mean to me and you insult me and your personality is the worst, but I'm still sitting here with you, having this conversation."

"Wow, thanks."

"So what I'm _trying_ to say is, whatever this secret is of yours, it would have to be completely and totally outrageously horrible to get me to fuck off. So can you please just spit it out already?"

Kageyama sucked in a deep breath, looking nervous. This really got Hinata's attention. Nervousness looked very unsettling on Kageyama.

"But-- err… I mean, if you're not ready to tell me yet, it can wait until another day," Hinata offered, trying to give him an out.

Kageyama shook his head, looking down at his feet. They were both sitting on the floor across from each other, Hinata leaning against his bed cross legged, Kageyama leaning against the opposite wall with his knees up. The only light illuminating the space was from Hinata's desk lamp. Kageyama was chewing on his lip like he often did when he was visibly thinking. Hinata occupied himself by staring at Kageyama's teeth worrying at it until it began to swell, until Kageyama was ready to speak. Finally, he took a deep breath, appearing to steel himself, looking directly into Hinata's eyes with the same intensity that he faced the opposing team with during a game.

"I'm gay. I like men."

Silence descended upon the room.

"Uh... okay?"

Kageyama blinked once, twice, before rounding on him, looking very defensive and angry. "'Okay'? What do you mean, _'okay'?!_ Don't you..." He paused, venom in his voice shifting into confusion - it was like he had been fully ready to jump face first into a fight to defend himself. "...That's all you have to say?"

"Uhh... yeah? Or, um... good for you? Woo-hoo?"

Kageyama just looked dumbfounded now. "It... doesn't bother you?"

"Uh, no? I'm bi. Or pan, or whatever you wanna call it. I don't really have a preference. I just like who I like. It'd be kinda silly to be bothered when I'm the same, you know?"

Hinata was unsure of what else to say as silence stretched out between them, like it always seemed to at some point during these conversations. Kageyama was looking at him dumbly, as if he had not even predicted that this outcome could be possible when he'd dropped his bomb. Navigating these tricky topics with Kageyama never got any easier, Hinata had discovered. On one hand, clearly this moment of coming out was a big deal for Kageyama. Truthfully, Hinata had just been trying desperately to stuff down the flare of hope that had bloomed in his chest in order to stay present in the moment, not to mention the excitement that Oikawa had been _wrong_. Hinata could tell Kageyama something stupid and menial like, 'oh, you're so brave', or 'it's okay, it's fine', but it didn't really feel like it was his place to say things like that. Hinata didn't consider it a big deal for himself, but Kageyama...

"My dad is homophobic. He doesn't like that I'm on a volleyball team full of... of boys."

Oh.

Suddenly Kageyama's father's aversion to the sport made a lot more sense.

"So he knows then? About... you?"

"Yeah. Coming out to him when I was twelve was the biggest mistake I've ever made. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea. We already didn't get along, but then… then everything just went to shit. Not that it was ever good to begin with, but nothing has ever been the same since."

"What about your mom then?"

"It doesn't matter. She just goes along with whatever he says. My house isn't a home. I'm not... welcome there. I can't wait until graduation and I can finally move out."

Hinata got up from his spot to shuffle over and plop himself directly in front of Kageyama. Following a moment of thought, Hinata pulled him into a quick hug, which Kageyama hesitantly returned after another pause. Hinata pulled away first as not to overwhelm Kageyama too much - the hugging was still quite new.

"If you're not welcome in your own home," Hinata spoke slowly, "then... you'd be welcome in mine." He offered it sincerely. Kageyama stared at him, the look causing something in Hinata's chest to shift. The look was oddly like... like Hinata was offering him the world on a silver platter. "You'll always be welcome here," he continued. "My mom and sister adore you." _I adore you_ , Hinata refrained from adding. He licked his lips, feeling strangely nervous. Kageyama was staring at him as if he were expecting Hinata to say something else. They were sitting so close together, Hinata felt like he could count Kageyama's eyelashes if he wanted to. As the moment stretched on, Kageyama seemed to deflate a little bit.

"...Right." Kageyama spoke stiffly.

_Did I say something wrong?_

"You're making a face."

"No I'm not."

"You are," Hinata argued. "Did I say something wrong?"

Kageyama heaved a big sigh before offering a very small, tired smile. "No, you didn't. I... Thanks, Hinata. Thank you for accepting me." He bowed his head a bit, Hinata fighting a flush to his cheeks.

"Oh my god, Kageyama, you don't have to _thank_ me. It's common decency. Most of the world has it, actually. Your family just fucking sucks."

Kageyama actually laughed a little bit. "Yeah. I guess they do." Hinata offered him a smile of his own.

"You can stay here tonight, if you want."

The offer was out of Hinata's mouth before he could even really think about the implications. He hoped Kageyama wasn't able to see his cheeks turning pink in the low light. He just-- he’d just thought… He didn’t know how he felt about Kageyama leaving to go back home just then. Hinata knew that his own house would at least be a safe refuge for Kageyama for the night. But then that would mean-- oh, god. Then again, it was unlikely that Kageyama would accept the offer anyways--

"Uh... Sure. Thanks."

Fuck.

"Okay!" Hinata kept his voice bright, just barely remembering to whisper. "The only problem is that I just have my... one singular bed, here. There's, uh, no spare bedroom. But you can have the bed. I'll just sleep on the floor--"

"It's fine. I don't care as long as you don't." Oh, god. _But I_ do _care_ , Hinata wanted to wail. Seeming to notice Hinata's hesitation, he added hastily with a look that almost looked _sheepish_ , "oi, idiot! You're making a face. Just... don't overthink it, okay? It's not like that, so, uh. Don't freak out."

Don't overthink it. _Don't overthink it._

_It's not like that._

Disappointment tugged at Hinata's heart. _Of course_ it was only a friendly gesture. Just because they were both-- both... men who liked men, didn't make it weird. Didn’t make it _special_. They were friends. Best friends. Best friends did stuff like this. Hinata would just have to suck it up - his eyes flickered involuntarily back to Kageyama’s bruising jaw. Kageyama _needed_ him right now.

Hinata forced himself with a great effort to not be stiff as he climbed back towards the bed. For show, just to prove how absolutely chill he was about all of this bed sharing business (it wasn't causing him to have an internal crisis at all, nope), he jumped straight onto the mattress, rolling himself directly into the wall, and patted the spot beside him.

Wait.

He was against the wall. He'd be trapped with Kageyama on the other side.

He _really_ hadn't thought this through.

It was too late to switch places as Tobi the cat had jumped up next, and Kageyama was careful as he slipped in next to Hinata so as not to squish him, turning the lamp off as he went. Shou was absolutely elated, his favourite human in the world was here when he wasn't usually - the orange tabby cat clambered into the bed after them, situating himself directly on top of Kageyama's chest, trapping him in that position with no hope of shifting around until the morning. Hinata laughed softly at his predicament, both out of amusement and abject horror because holy fuck what was _happening_ , Kageyama shooting him a glare out of the corner of his eye. Kageyama looked so adorably defeated, resigned to the fate of being pinned in place by a little eight pound cat. This just made Hinata laugh more, this time, more so out of amusement - he was adamant about shoving down his discomfort. The _last_ thing he needed was for Kageyama to notice. The thing about getting to know someone was that it worked both ways - sure, Hinata was much better at reading Kageyama now, but this was also true of the reverse, too. He had to be _careful_. 

Maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Maybe Hinata could let himself enjoy this one rare moment of sharing a bed with Kageyama, _his_ bed (Kageyama was in his _bed!_ ), a moment that would be unlikely to ever happen again as things stood now. Kageyama seemed to be dozing off quickly, Shou purring audibly as he rose up and down in tandem with Kageyama's steady breathing. The bed was not exactly big, but Hinata made sure that none of his body parts were making contact with Kageyama's, even if it resulted in him having to contort his body in ways that he was sure to feel the consequences of in the morning.

But then again...

Kageyama's hand was just sitting there, palm up towards the ceiling between them.

Without really giving himself the time to think, Hinata took it. 

And if Hinata looked closely enough through the dark, he thought that maybe Kageyama was smiling, just a little bit.

It was all fine. Platonic.

What was awful, though, was that Kageyama's confession had given him hope, even if just for a few moments. Feeling that flash of hope only to be let down seemed worse than never having had anything at all.

_It's not like that. So don't freak out._

Nope, no freaking out happening here at all.

Hinata had told himself that he could live with this. He could live with never being Kageyama's special person, he could live with being just his best friend for the rest of his life, so close but so far. 

He could make the feelings disappear. Somehow.

Sleep came surprisingly easy between the shared warmth of four bodies in the bed and the rhythmic purring of the cats. Hinata ended up spooning Tobi all night, and Shou was delightedly drooling all over Kageyama as they both fell asleep. Hinata's dreams were full of the soft music that Kageyama listened to, quiet purring and kisses, warm hands clasped in his own.

Changes had come alongside the shifting of the seasons. Somewhere along the way of learning all kinds of things about Kageyama the person, rather than just Kageyama the volleyball player, Hinata's problematic crush had grown from something simple into something much deeper and all consuming.

The more he tried to stuff the feelings down, the more unbearable they got. The more he tried to rid himself of the feelings, the more prominent they became.

It was one thing to want Kageyama to see him as a real, true friend. He had gotten his wish. Kageyama was more open towards him than he had ever been.

It was another thing to want Kageyama to need him as a person, to want to stand beside him as an equal, a partner in all things.

He had learned so much about Kageyama's life; about his goals, his aspirations, his greatest fears, his feelings that he was so used to hiding, and Hinata had eaten it all up like a starving man. He'd kept up with his notebook diligently - his sparse little list was now pages upon pages long. It was still written in point form, but over time, the points had begun to get very long and detailed. Hinata didn't want to miss writing down a single thing. He poured through it often, even if he more or less had every bullet point memorized.

How could he not? It was the one thing he thought about most often. Maybe even more than _volleyball_.

Somewhere along the way, Hinata had become completely, irreparably, hopelessly in love with Kageyama Tobio - his best friend.

He was totally fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song this time is Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex. It’s worth a listen if you have the time!
> 
> Hinata is a little late to realizing a few things about himself. I think his crush has been bordering on closer to love for a while now. He’s just too unconditionally invested for it not to be. If it hasn’t already been blindingly obvious up until now, these two make me very soft. <3 Next update is Wednesday morning! Chapter 9 is a fun chapter in my own opinion and I had such a blast writing it, hope you guys will like it too.


	9. Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting hard to handle.

\- ♠️ -

Spiral

It was September. The cats were full grown. 

Tobi was a wiry little thing, and much to everyone's surprise, Shou had grown quite a bit bigger than him. Hinata was sort of jealous, wondering where _his_ growth spurt was - why did his doppelganger get to have one? Not fair. Tobi had grown quite a lot of confidence as he grew, a brazen and unapologetic doof of a cat, always right there getting into trouble along with Shou.

In related news, Kageyama was becoming more brazen within his own family, too. Their comments appeared to be bothering him less. He didn't care so much anymore, and Kageyama's parents finally had learned of Hinata's existence. Kageyama had… told them about him. Hinata wasn’t so stupid as not to recognize the significance of this.

Suffice to say, his dad didn't approve, but he was also gone all the time anyways. Even his mother seemed to be getting fed up with Kageyama's father's crap.

Hinata never thought he'd celebrate the day that Kageyama announced that his parents were getting a divorce. Kageyama's face when he’d told him had held a complex emotion that Hinata now could pick apart easily and analyze. There was stress there, he was clearly feeling strained, probably lots of angry fighting over the phone late at night, but there was relief there as well, and maybe even a little bit of triumph. Maybe Kageyama had never realized it, but for a long time, his parents were all he'd had. They were distant though, and Kageyama was unable to find support there, but now he had Hinata, Hinata’s family, the team, and the cats. He had somewhere else to go - he had people who loved him for who he was now.

So yeah, maybe celebrating a divorce was weird and kind of awful in a way, but they did it anyways over dinner with the team. Not that they told them why they were so upbeat. They were originally just celebrating over playing a great series of games and taking every single set in one day, but Hinata and Kageyama had added their own meaning to it.

So hurray for shitty dads getting kicked out of the house.

Not that all of Kageyama's home life problems were instantly fixed, but it was a start. He seemed happier.

A happier Kageyama was still a Kageyama, though, and he was always an ass as usual, that would never change. Just like Hinata's feelings would never change, no matter how hard he had tried to stuff them down.

He had tried distancing himself from Kageyama for a bit when it was all starting to become too much, but that was short lived. The look on Kageyama's face when Hinata flinched away from his touch was just too awful - so full of hurt, and of betrayal. Hinata couldn't-- he couldn’t _do that_ to him. Once the walls had been knocked down, it was like a dam had broken. Kageyama had poured his heart and soul and all of his trust into Hinata. He couldn't let him down, not after everything they'd built up together.

But it was so agonizing.

So Hinata went through his days pretending things were fine. He went through his days being Kageyama's best friend. He kept his feelings to himself, and kept himself in check as not to give anything away. He'd come too far, and for all of the pain he was in, losing Kageyama would be infinitely worse.

Hinata would not let that happen.

There was an instance where everything nearly came apart, though. Kageyama had come dangerously close to realizing the nature of Hinata's feelings.

Kageyama had found Hinata's spiral notebook - the notebook where he had been meticulously documenting everything new that he learned about Kageyama by date and in the order that he'd learned it, adding and elaborating onto old points with addendums or additional notes in the margins.

Well, he'd found _one_ of them, that was.

He'd been stupid and just left it out on the bed, and of course Kageyama would notice it lying there, of course he'd be curious when he found it nearly completely filled with Hinata's handwriting when usually Hinata was shit at taking notes, and of _course_ he had ignored any notion of _'hey, maybe don't read through your friend's private journal, you filthy fucking gremlin, I mean seriously, what is wrong with you?,'_ and fucking read it.

Hinata had been in the bathroom changing his clothes, only to come out and find Kageyama plopped down on his bed cross legged, just how he usually liked to sit. His large form dwarfed the bed around him, and his face was completely buried with the book way closer to his eyes than it reasonably needed to be. Hinata had felt his stomach drop through the floor as he realized what he was seeing.

He shrieked and lunged for the bed, tackling Kageyama back with the full force of his body weight to try to snatch the book from his hands. Hinata may have been small, but he had speed and the sheer inhuman strength that was granted only to mortals experiencing complete and utter terror on his side, and Kageyama was only able to let out a confused "wha?" before Hinata had ripped the book out of his grubby little thieving hands and was turning around to leap away and lock himself in the bathroom forever. Kageyama had recovered in that split second of time though, and Hinata had been slowed down by their tangle of legs which gave Kageyama just enough time to loop his great big stupidly long arms right around Hinata's midsection to drag him back down onto the bed. They became a writhing mess of limbs as both of them grabbed for the notebook, Hinata's shorter arms no match for Kageyama's obnoxiously far reach, so he did the only thing he could think of in that moment and stuffed it down the front of his shirt. In hindsight, maybe he would have realized that this was an _abysmally_ terrible idea.

"You have a whole book about me! What the fuck!" Kageyama shrieked, worming his hands up Hinata's sides, tickling him and causing Hinata to scream with laughter. Then Kageyama's arm was reaching up under his shirt, brushing against the soft skin of Hinata’s stomach as he reached for the book, and Hinata felt a horrific tingling sensation move from the place of contact and straight to a region best left unnamed. He cursed his stupid, overly sensitive body for being so hyper-reactive to Kageyama’s every move. "Give it to me!" Kageyama yelled again, mouth right next to Hinata's ear, the sound feeling like it was blowing out his eardrum.

"No!" Hinata yowled, flinging himself into a roll so that he ended up on his stomach, another awful idea, because Kageyama's arm went with him and was now sandwiched between his mattress and his stomach, not to mention Kageyama was now straddling his backside and breathing hot onto his neck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"You've been writing everything down about me in a journal," Kageyama stated. Wow, very observant, great job for summing that one up Kageyama, way to go - Hinata tried to kick his legs up to hit Kageyama's back with the underside of his foot, but his legs weren't long enough to reach. He'd gotten himself pinned by Kageyama's thighs on either side of him, one arm stuck up under Hinata's shirt, and the other caging him in. Kageyama was still panting down his neck. Hinata kind of wanted to cry.

"Don't you have any concept of _privacy?_ " Hinata wailed, voice half muffled where his face was pressed into the mattress.

"Oh, yeah, privacy. Like that time you followed me into the woods? Or that time you broke into my backyard?"

"The gate was unlocked!"

"That's not an invitation to just waltz on in, you piece of--!"

"Well, I did it anyway!"

"I know! That's why I brought it up, you dumbass--"

"You can't see my book!"

"Just give it to me! I already read most of it anyway!"

"No!" Hinata howled again. The one blessing that had come of this situation was that Kageyama could not see his face, which was probably as red as a cherry tomato by now.

"Your ears are turning red, Hinata." God damn it, he'd read his mind. The bastard.

"How much did you read!?"

"I only had a few pages left to go." His voice was smug.

"Aughhhh!!" Hinata wailed out. This was just too mortifying to handle.

Hinata suddenly felt the weight on top of him vanish, and he heaved a quick sigh of relief - that was until he was squealing as he was being rolled over onto his back, Kageyama then climbing back to straddle him right above his hips so he couldn't escape. Finally face to face, Hinata froze.

Kageyama removed his hand slowly from out of Hinata's shirt. As Kageyama's fingers dragged against him, Hinata tried to think of wrinkly old ladies, or Tsukishima's ugly gross face, anything to distract him from Kageyama's hands on his bare skin, otherwise this situation was about to get infinitely worse when he popped a-- a... erm. Too late. 

Hinata gulped audibly when Kageyama quickly moved one palm up the length of Hinata's arms, his whole hand easily able to wrap around and pin both of Hinata's wrists above his head. In his other he held the little book, looking triumphant.

"Wow, your face is really red," Kageyama observed.

"You think, Kageyama!?" He heaved out a breath, exhausted from their tussle. "You read my book. That was supposed to be _private_."

"Well, it's not anymore."

"Thanks, I got that, genius." Embarrassment was making Hinata snappy.

There was a pause where they both just stared at each other, and Hinata felt himself heating up all over again the more he contemplated the nature of the compromised position he'd ended up in. Kageyama had him pinned, his arms above Hinata's head to secure his wrists in place whilst his toned thigh muscles clenched against his midsection to keep him still. Kageyama was still holding the book in his free hand, but hadn't moved to open it yet.

"I thought it was sort of..." Kageyama paused, screwing up his face as he searched for a word. Hinata's brain began unhelpfully filling in the space. _Disgusting? Creepy? Weird as fucking shit?_ "...Nice."

"You thought it was... nice." Hinata echoed.

"Yeah."

_What._

Kageyama spoke again when he appeared to realize that Hinata had lost his ability to think. "I mean! It just... it proves that you really did care, all along. About me." Kageyama's voice was soft.

"Are you serious?"

The softness disappeared to be replaced by the usual irritation. "Yes? Were you even listening to me? I just _said_ it was _nice_ , dumbass. It's nice because there was a time where I didn't really... believe you. About... being my friend. I thought you were going to be like those other kids from middle school. I thought you might be making fun of me, or something. This proves that... that you've been good all along." His voice was getting quiet again. "So thanks. For being there."

Hinata could only nod back dumbly. "Uh. You're welcome?"

Slowly, both of them caught their breath.

"You wrote a book about me," Kageyama repeated again after a moment.

Hinata decided to withhold the fact that he actually had a whole entire _other_ notebook too that he'd started writing in when he'd run out of pages in the first one.

"It's only in point form," he said instead.

"Everything you've learned about me." Kageyama leaned forward a bit until his head was hovering several inches away from Hinata's, blue eyes so intense that they probably could have pinned Hinata in place without Kageyama even needing to hold him there. Finally, Kageyama lifted the book back up in front of him. Hinata made to squirm again until he realized how terrible an idea that was when Kageyama - sweating, panting, pink faced Kageyama - was sitting directly atop his hips. He stilled himself, gulping, watching in terror as he waited for his life to end. If Kageyama were to shift even the slightest amount backwards, if he were to catch on to the nature of what this situation was _doing to him_ , Hinata would most certainly be buried in a shallow grave out in the woods, this time for real. "If I didn’t know better, I'd almost think you liked me," Kageyama teased, and Hinata froze.

That was too close to home, and Hinata lost his breath. Kageyama was reading the book again by the time Hinata could even reboot his brain.

"Ahem," Kageyama cleared his throat dramatically.

Oh, for fuck's sake, he was going to read it out loud, too? 

" _'Kageyama really seems to like caring for small, helpless things. He is nice to cats and flowers, and is very sweet with my sister. He also doesn't kill bugs if he has the chance to catch them and put them somewhere else first, which is unexpected, because he's an ass in every other way imaginable.'_ " Kageyama's face was twitching and red. He gave the impression that he was trying to be pissed off about this, but his earlier comments stuck out to Hinata. 

Kageyama was happy. He was really, _really_ happy, and doing a very poor job of hiding it.

" _'Kageyama loses his temper a lot, but there is a way to tell if he's really upset for real. He gets angry about everything, but if he's actually bothered he'll just try to just shrug it off and make it seem like he doesn't care. He'll then sit and stew about it for days and be extra super snappy about smaller things. He holds grudges so be careful. Giving him milk or yogurt helps. He likes strawberry milk but refuses to be seen drinking it in public because the container is way too cute and he’s embarrassed.'_ " He paused for a moment, eyes flickering to the side of the page. "Oh, there's a note written here. _'Note to self: make sure there is always strawberry milk in the fridge, even if he's the only one who'll drink it.'_ "

Kageyama raised his head to meet Hinata's eyes. "You keep milk just for me?"

Hinata frowned, feeling grouchy. "Well, you just read it, didn't you? Don't ask me stupid shit when you already have the answer."

Kageyama gave him a sour look in response, but was quickly distracted again.

" _'Kageyama's face is only ever peaceful when he's sleeping. He looks nice when he sleeps.'_ " Both of their faces were scarlet now. "What the fuck. You watched me sleep!? When and how!?"

"It was at the training camp! I couldn't sleep and you were just... there!" Hinata tried to defend himself. "And I meant 'nice' as in like... 'not mean'!"

Kageyama stared back at him through narrowed eyes as if contemplating this, before he turned his attention back down to the book to keep on with the torture, reading more. " _'The frowns that Kageyama makes all mean different things. Nobody would expect it, but he's actually very open with his face if you pay attention. Different frowns mean different things. It’s important to look at his eyes because they’re the most expressive part of his face, and sometimes they’re the only way to figure out what a certain frown means.'_ ” Kageyama paused to stare at the page. “Huh. You even drew a chart. You really go all out, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"You go all out. You write down _everything_."

"...Y-yeah."

He continued through the rest of the list. Most of the points were just rogue little one offs, things like “Kageyama has trouble eating spicy food because it makes his whole face red and he gets all sweaty”, or “Kageyama’s favourite food is pork curry with an egg on top”, or “Kageyama sleeps in class a lot because he stays up late a lot coming up with volleyball plays” - the miscellaneous tidbits seemed to never end. Hinata busied himself just staring at Kageyama’s mouth moving, because really, where else was he supposed to look? He had basically every point memorized already, he was already at peak mortification as far as embarrassment went, and Kageyama’s mouth was far more interesting to focus on anyways. The way he’d nibble his lip sometimes during a pause, or his tongue would dart out to wet his lips before speaking - Hinata didn’t often find himself in a position where he was able to just unabashedly _stare_ , so he figured he’d make the most of it. He was a dead man anyways, and that problem in his pants couldn’t possibly get any worse unless Kageyama were to shift himself back to _sit_ on it-- or, ergh… perhaps it was better to _not_ think of that right now, lest he start thinking of Kageyama straddling him in a different way-- _God damnit Shouyou, think of literally anything else already, for fuck’s sake!_

It wasn’t long before Kageyama reached the end of the list, Hinata only realizing he’d finished when he noticed that Kageyama was just… _looking_ at him.

They kept staring at each other - Hinata wasn’t sure how long it had been since he'd finished reading the book. When it didn't seem that Kageyama was going to say anything else, Hinata began to squirm.

"Uh. Kageyama."

"What."

"Can I please get up now? You're kinda heavy."

Kageyama startled as if he were in a daze, almost like he’d only _just_ realized that they’d been in a rather fluster-inducing position for the duration of the encounter, quickly scrambling back off of Hinata and dropping the notebook back onto the bed. Hinata stood up after him, becoming suddenly extremely _very_ aware, somehow even more so than he’d already been, of the... _problem_ , in his pants, that needed to be solved as soon as humanly possible. The book fell from the bed and onto the floor as they shifted to stand up, where they both just stared at it for a moment before Hinata recovered and crouched down to grab it, and also hide his _issue_ while he was at it. Kageyama was looking awkward, and for a brief moment, Hinata was terrified that he had noticed. If he did, he made no comment about it. Hinata needed to figure out a way to escape to _tend_ to himself that wouldn't make things even more awkward when he returned. He took a deep breath, and announced, "Welp! I," he spun around, "am going to go pee. I will... be back."

It was a lame as hell excuse but it was literally all that he could think of. Kageyama's face was doing that... that _thing_ where he was trying to school it to look normal, when ‘normal’ was not a face that Kageyama could naturally make, and he just nodded.

Hinata scurried off, and as he dealt with his issue, hands pumping against himself, he felt horribly guilty when he allowed Kageyama's face to conjure itself in his mind and appear before his eyes.

God, the way Kageyama had looked at him - he had been so... touched. It was with the image of that face in his mind that Hinata released into his own hands, feeling immediately guilty and ashamed.

...Things were getting out of hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternate summary of this chapter is “Hinata gets so horny thinking about Kageyama's legs and mouth that he has to go take a time out.” The alternate alternate chapter summary is “Mo uses fanfiction as an excuse to get away with ranting and raving about his headcanons.” Then again, the favourite food part is true, at least according to the wiki.
> 
> I hope this chapter is even a fraction as much fun to read as it was to write. I seriously had a blast with that little ‘fight’ scene. ^o^ See you in two days on Friday afternoon when shit finally hits the fan! I mean, it had to eventually, right? No matter what happens, I promise I’ll be kind to you by the end! ;)


	10. Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things hit a breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where things may or may not start getting a little bit AU because I've not read the manga, or even finished the anime actually. I'm still somewhere in the middle of season 2. Whoops. owo;;

\- ♠️ -

Distance

The beginning of December saw an interesting development.

"I like you."

Hinata whipped around to face Kageyama, unsure if he had just heard that right.

He'd said it so casually, a soft little smile painted upon his face.

_I like you. I like you._

_He likes me?_

It was only after Hinata had sat there in silence staring back at him for a good few seconds that Kageyama's own eyes had grown wide, as if realizing he had just said something really strange, and that weird, faux neutral face appeared on his face that Hinata figured that he probably needed to respond. He was beginning to realize that that face meant _discomfort_ to some degree that Kageyama was trying to hide, but he still couldn't identify how much.

_I like you._

What _kind_ of like? Friend like? _Romantic_ like? Hinata scoured his brain as quickly as he could, pouring over the context of everything that had happened in the past five minutes, trying to withhold his reaction for as long as possible to buy himself some time.

They were playing Super Smash Brothers at Hinata's house. Hinata had just made some wisecrack about something stupid, something about how Kageyama was playing as Pit when he should really be playing as Dark Pit, because come on, of course he should be playing the edgy one, he even _looked_ like Kageyama--

It was a regular, mundane situation. Nothing had prompted this declaration. No deep talks, no romantic environment. They'd raced home from school on their bikes, so they were both sweaty and gross despite the weather, just laying there on the floor of Hinata's living room with the fan blowing air onto them. Shou was licking his ass in the corner of the room. The only sound was from the game's selection screen and then, if one were to listen closely, the sound of the aforementioned Shou's tongue scraping through his ass fur. Hinata's mom was still at work, and his sister at daycare - they were alone.

Even so, this was not a romantic context. Hinata felt both relieved and disappointed at the same time, but his relaxed shoulders and smile at least had seemed to have a soothing effect on Kageyama, who's body slowly untensed, although his gaze remained bright.

Of course it wasn't romantic. Hinata internally berated himself for allowing himself to even so much as consider that it could be for even a moment. This was _Kageyama_ of all people, Kageyama the brilliant volleyball setter who was destined for a life of greatness, Kageyama the king of the court, Kageyama who was just too far out of Hinata's league to ever even be viable for Hinata to pursue in that context. There was just… there was no way.

He still had to reply. Kageyama's face was still weird, and Hinata didn't want to leave him hanging after declaring something so monumental. He knew how hard it was for Kageyama to admit things like that out loud.

"I like you too!" Hinata said a little too cheerfully, but if Kageyama noticed anything off about his tone, he didn't mention it. Kageyama wasn't making a sound, and he was as still as a statue as he stared back at him, expectant. Hinata wondered if he was still breathing. "I like being friends with you, playing volleyball together, and hanging out with the cats!" The words got easier to say as he went on. Kageyama was just... staring at him. Hinata thought for a moment he saw his eye twitch.

"Right," was all Kageyama said in reply, turning back to the television screen, controller gripped tightly in his hand.

"I'm glad you're so open with me now," Hinata went on, stuffing down his own feelings. _It's platonic. Don't get your hopes up_. "It feels really great that you feel like you can just share your feelings like that now. It's giving me the warm fuzzies!"

It was giving him indigestion, actually.

Hinata was privately wishing that Kageyama hadn't said anything at all. The feeling of having his hopes raised only to fall crashing back down to earth was too much, but he couldn't let Kageyama know that, not when they had come so far. They continued their match in an amiable silence - or at least, Hinata thought it was amiable. Looking at Kageyama through the corner of his eyes, his head was cast down, shoulders slumped. He looked kind of like a kid who's ice cream cone had fallen on the floor. Hinata would have found it cute if he weren't trying so desperately to keep his thoughts in check, lest he blurt out something that would turn the situation from a normal one to an unsalvageable mess. Hinata wanted to identify the look as _disappointment_ , but realized that he was probably just projecting onto Kageyama because he himself was feeling disappointed. 

He felt that his conclusion was validated when the rest of the afternoon continued on completely as normal. Kageyama didn't bring it up again, and he seemed as grouchy as he always was, no more, no less.

Nothing was weird after that, well, not really.

Hinata thought that maybe Kageyama seemed a little... distant, compared to how he was usually. It was like a blast from the past. 

Another day had been spent practicing in the gym. The Interhigh was coming up fast. The two of them were in the changing room now, and Hinata glanced over his shoulder to find Kageyama shirtless. This wasn't unusual, they changed in front of each other all the time.

What was unusual was the way that Kageyama was staring at him. _Bitterly_ , almost, through narrowed eyes. Hinata tried to stare back, feeling vaguely like he was being challenged and that he needed to hold his ground, but his gaze inevitably went lower.

"Damn, Kageyama, abs much?"

"Huh?"

"You've gotten really buff," Hinata explained. Kageyama's body was relaxed, but his abs were still defined despite him not actively flexing. His arms had grown muscular too, not to mention his legs, and well, _everything_ \- but overall he wasn't outright _beefy_ or anything. Just... toned, really. He looked good.

Hinata realized he must have said at least part of his train of thought out loud because Kageyama was staring at him like he'd sprouted another head.

"Yeah, well." Kageyama wouldn't meet his gaze. "You too. You've bulked up a bit."

"Really?" Hinata replied cheerfully, doing his best to try to lighten the weird atmosphere in the room. "Hm." He bent over to look down at his stomach. It was nowhere near as muscular as Kageyama's, but he had been right, he had filled out a bit more. He'd even grown an inch, but then again, Kageyama had grown two. Without really thinking, Hinata threw his arm out to smack Kageyama's stomach with his palm.

"Woah!" Hinata exclaimed, meanwhile Kageyama made a weird sort of high pitched grunting sound. He began to rub his hand up and down in small circles. "They're really hard!"

"Don't-- Don't touch that--"

Hinata looked back up, suddenly aware of how weird this situation was. He was just... feeling up Kageyama's stomach. He had acted again without thinking like he often did - no matter how mindful he tried to be, some habits were impossible to break fully. Hinata looked up to meet Kageyama's eyes. His cheeks were turning pink.

Hinata had been about to pull back, but suddenly Kageyama was grabbing his hand, holding it in place. The movement had caused the muscles there to shift and clench, then relax, and Hinata was mesmerized. The atmosphere seemed to shift to some strange, undefined territory that Hinata couldn’t quite name. Neither one of them spoke as Hinata kept holding his hand to Kageyama's stomach, running his hands over the muscles, fingers tracing the outline of the grooves in his flesh. As his hand drifted, Kageyama's stomach clenched again.

"Ticklish?" Hinata asked, trying to make light of the situation, voice sounding high and airy. Kageyama didn't respond, just kept staring back with an unreadable look on his face. Purely neutral, with slightly down turned eyebrows like that simple, light-hearted question had _bothered_ him for some reason, although Hinata had no idea why it would have. His face was like that a lot recently. Maybe Hinata was being way, way too forward? But he'd thought he'd been on his best behaviour. He’d just been trying to dispel the weird air that had settled around them.

"Hinata." Kageyama spoke after a long moment, Hinata lifting his eyes back to meet Kageyama's. Kageyama gulped audibly, throat bobbing, and his mouth opened, but the sound didn't come out right away. He closed it for a moment, then tried again. "Do you--"

A loud whooping noise interrupted them as the first years came pouring into the locker room. Hinata ripped his hand back, and quickly pulled his shirt back on over his head. Kageyama watched his hand retreat for a long moment before he did the same. They left together hurriedly, and once they had cleared the gym and were out of earshot, Hinata turned back to him.

"So, what were you going to say?"

Kageyama had clearly lost his nerve in the time it had taken for them to get dressed and get outside. "Nothing important."

"Kageyama,” Hinata started carefully. “Is something wrong? You've been acting kind of weird lately."

"Nothing's wrong. And I was just going to... gonna ask if you have enough... cat food. Or if I should go get some."

That most certainly hadn't been what Kageyama was going to ask at all, and Hinata knew it, they'd just grabbed cat food last week - but he let it slide. He'd try talking to Kageyama again when he was in a better mood. Right now he appeared to be bothered by something, and he was obviously trying to hide it, which meant it must be serious. Prodding him would only make him defensive, and then getting anywhere with him would be impossible.

Things got weird on Kageyama's birthday.

They celebrated with the team, and even some of their old upperclassmen had attended. It was supposed to be a momentous occasion, Kageyama was finally eighteen, but then the topic of post-secondary had come up. Everyone wanted to know what Kageyama's plans were. They were graduating in March - their last game at Karasuno would be the Spring Interhigh, which they had qualified for again. Their futures were uncertain. Kageyama was well on his way to going pro, his skills had been growing greater over time, and their tournament would be his final chance to prove himself - as for Hinata, he didn't really know what he was going to do. He had made leaps and bounds himself in terms of his skills and development, but that was nothing compared to Kageyama.

Hinata had always been terrified of being left behind. He constantly had to be improving to even stand a chance at keeping up with Kageyama. There never got to be a plateau, never a moment where he could get comfortable with where he was. He was always chasing after Kageyama like that. But now...

The uncertainty left a hollow pit in his stomach.

One thing seemed to be cemented, and that was that Kageyama was likely going to be going somewhere far, far away after this was all over. Far from Miyagi. Far from Hinata.

Kageyama was going to be running off somewhere that Hinata couldn't follow. 

Kageyama seemed to realize it too, or at least, Hinata thought he did. Sulking on his birthday was unacceptable, Hinata decided then, and so when Kageyama moved outside to get some air, Hinata followed him.

Kageyama stood leaning against the wall of the back alley of the restaurant. Hinata moved in beside him, not really feeling the need to speak just yet. Kageyama was the one to break the awkward silence first.

"I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm... scared." He admitted.

They'd come so far. Despite the tension, Kageyama had spoken his mind easily. Distantly in the back of his mind, Hinata could feel proud, remembering a time when getting Kageyama to even talk about what he did after school was a challenge.

"You can talk to me about it, you know."

Strangely, this seemed to make Kageyama feel worse. His head hung forward, bangs falling into his face. Hinata felt confused, especially when his reply was a one worded one. 

"Yeah."

"I'm your friend," Hinata offered. It was his go-to in situations like this.

"...Yeah. I know." It sounded kind of like he was confirming this with himself, rather than assuring Hinata.

"Let's go back inside? People will get worried."

"Mm."

The rest of the night passed more or less normally. They hung out the next day still, like always. Kageyama had seemed... off, though, when he'd arrived - Hinata could see it on his face the moment he walked through the front door.

It was in their usual position of Hinata laying on the bed and Kageyama with a cat in his lap that Kageyama breached the alarming subject once more.

"What's your plan after all this?"

Hinata didn't need to ask for clarification. He knew exactly what Kageyama was talking about. He'd thought about it all night. He'd barely slept.

"...I don't know. I love playing volleyball, but I'm not sure I could make a career out of it. Not... not like you could," Hinata admitted.

Kageyama looked up sharply. "Yes, you could. You're great. They'll see when we're at nationals. We'll make it this year. We _will_. They'll have to give you a scholarship when they see you play."

Hinata looked back, eyebrows furrowed. "No... They'll give _you_ a scholarship. It's obvious that you're the one who makes our quick attack so powerful. You're a _genius_ setter, Kageyama, and I really mean that. My best asset is my speed and my stamina, but... but on the national level, that's not exactly _special_ anymore. All of the players need that kind of speed, and they've trained hard enough by then that their stamina is right up there with it." Hinata shook his head. Kageyama was looking at him, the unsettling look of forced neutrality back on his face, with eyes narrowed.

Hinata spoke again when Kageyama didn't respond. "...Kageyama. I've already thought a lot about it, and... it's likely we won't be going to the same school. You know that, right?" Kageyama just stared back at him, not moving a muscle. "...Kageyama. Did you hear me?"

"...Fuck!" Kageyama swore suddenly, startling Shou and Hinata alike, who both looked up at him in alarm. "So you've already given up on it, then? You won't even _try?_ "

"No!" Hinata tried to backtrack. "I'm just... trying to look at it realistically. I know you know it too. You're just... no matter how I look at it, you're just _better_ than I am. You can stand on your own. I _can't_." The admission hurt to say out loud. "I _love_ volleyball. I'll never give up on it, not ever. I'd love to go pro. But... while I'll just be playing for fun until my skills are good enough to get scouted, you could be a representative for _Japan_ , Kageyama. If you get that chance, you _need_ to take it. Do it for yourself, and do it for me, too. Do it for us both. Okay?"

"Ngh--" Kageyama groaned, turning his head down. "But you... you should be there with me. I just..." He took a deep breath. "I'm not ready for this to end. What comes next?"

"We go off down our own paths," Hinata replied simply, shoving his own feelings aside. It didn’t _matter_ what Hinata wanted. He was Kageyama’s best friend, and he needed to support his friend’s dreams. "Maybe someday we could even play together again."

"And you're just... _fine_ with that?" Kageyama flashed back, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"If it's for the best of both of us, then yes. Kageyama, I'm not going to hold you down. I want you to go. I really do."

"You want me to go," Kageyama echoed back sourly.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Not like that." Hinata groaned, shifting forward on the bed so they could see each other better. "You know what I mean."

"So I'll be on my own going forward. Good to know," Kageyama spat bitterly.

What the fuck.

"Kageyama, what's your problem? Why are you being so weird? You're taking everything I say and twisting it around to make it sound awful."

"What was the point of all of this if we're just going to be going our separate ways anyways?" Kageyama growled through gritted teeth.

" _'All of this?'_ What is _'all of this?'_ " Hinata was trying hard to understand. For the first time in a very long time, he was having trouble keeping up with Kageyama's train of thought.

"'This', as in the past few years. What's the _point?_ You won't be coming with me anyways, and now you don't even want to _try?_ Fuck you, Hinata."

"Hey!" Hinata glared back at him, beginning to feel alarmed by how quickly the conversation was spiraling out of control. "Don't snap at me because you're the one having trouble expressing yourself. Just say what you mean!"

This, apparently, was very much the wrong thing to say.

"'Say what I mean?'" Kageyama echoed. The air in the room seemed to be getting rapidly colder - Hinata felt like he had just stepped out naked into the frigid winter air. Kageyama laughed, just a singular, sharp note. "I've been _saying_ what I mean. This whole damn time, I've said the things I wanted to, when I wanted to. That's what you _wanted_ , wasn't it? But just because I _say_ what I mean doesn't mean you'll _get it_. Or fuck, maybe you do, but you just cherry pick what you want to hear. If I say something you don't like, you just ignore it and play it off like it never happened. _Fuck you,_ Hinata. You're _real_ transparent sometimes, you know?"

Hinata couldn't understand where all of this bitterness had suddenly come from. It-- it was making him feel defensive. It was making him feel _angry_. "Why are you getting all _pissy_ about it? I literally have no idea what the fuck you're talking about right now. And just because we're going our separate ways-- I mean, I'm still gonna text you! I’ll still be your friend, Kageyama. I don't know why you're so upset!"

Kageyama's head tilted to the side. His eyes looked hollow, and his eyelid twitched a bit. His mouth was turned upwards like he was smiling, but it looked _wrong_ \- it sent a chill up Hinata's spine. Kageyama was really, _really_ angry. His voice was dangerously quiet when he spoke.

"You think-- you think it's alright because you're gonna _text_ me, after you fucking-- you..." Kageyama took in a shaky breath, like he was trying really hard not to lose it. This made Hinata angrier - what the fuck was he so mad about? _He_ should have been the one who was angry! "You just _act_ without even considering how the people around you feel, or how the things you say affect them. You act like everything's fine when it isn't. You take no responsibility for your actions at all." There was a heavy pause. "...You really have no idea, do you? The things you do? And what they do to me?" Kageyama laughed again bitterly, the sound coming out dry. "I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse, or if you're just really that fucking stupid."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm not a mind reader then, Kageyama!" Hinata fought the heat rising into his eyes. He was just so... confused. A chasm had opened up between them, and Hinata hadn't ever even noticed the signs of it developing, and had no idea how long the threat of it had been hanging over their heads. Kageyama-- he wouldn't be so angry unless this had been building up for a long time. But about _what?_ Had he figured out that Hinata liked him? Was he angry about _that?_

Kageyama was all but yelling when he went on. "You don't _have_ to be a mind reader! Do you ever even _listen?_ You know what, fuck this. I can't do this right now. I'm going home."

"What! Why?!" Hinata leapt off the bed to throw himself in front of the door right as Kageyama was standing up to leave. "You can't just run away! Stay here and explain!"

"I literally just did!" Kageyama spat out, inches away from his face. "I'm not just gonna stand here and keep repeating myself hoping you just miraculously _get it_ all of the sudden. If you don't get it now, then you never will!"

They were going around in circles. Hinata was desperately trying not to give in to the urge to rip out his own hair.

"Be more up front!" Hinata growled back at him.

The air around Kageyama almost seemed to darken. " _Up front_ , huh? You want me to be more _up front?_ ” His voice had gone eerily quiet.

Hinata felt his own face fall in despair and _anger_ , and he knew his eyes must be swimming with unshed tears. He had never felt so furious at Kageyama in his life while simultaneously feeling so completely and utterly _crushed_. They’d just been _talking_ , everything had been _fine_ , and now-- Kageyama went rigid, their eyes meeting for what felt like a long moment, and Hinata was briefly met with an absolutely _despondent_ look. The atmosphere shifted abruptly in that moment. The look was gone as quick as it came, but then-- something inside Kageyama suddenly seemed to _snap_.

In a whirlwind of motion, Kageyama was suddenly slamming Hinata into the wall of his room, towering over him at full height. Kageyama had him pinned, stomach to the wall, arms held in place roughly by Kageyama's hands behind Hinata's back. Those kind hands that had always held Hinata so carefully behind closed bedroom doors were no longer kind at all. Kageyama's body weight was crushing, forcing the air out from his lungs. Hinata began to panic. Kageyama was squeezing his wrists but made no move aside from that, although Hinata could feel him panting out ragged breaths onto his neck. Hinata had no idea what was going on at all, and Kageyama was scaring him-- he didn't know what he was going to do to him - choke him? Suffocate him?

"K-Kageyama," Hinata was barely able to choke out, "you're scaring me--"

“Stop moving.” Kageyama’s voice was just millimetres away from his ear. “And stop talking. For five minutes. Just… five minutes.” Kageyama swallowed heavily. “I don’t want to see your face right now. I don’t want to see it when-- when you’re making that disappointed and angry face towards me. Not on you. _Not on you. I can’t take it._ ”

His voice was so terrifyingly uneven, breaking on the last syllable. Things had already been out of control, but now it almost seemed like Kageyama was on the verge of a _panic attack_. An old conversation suddenly surged forward in Hinata’s mind; Kageyama used to get panic attacks, didn't he? After what had happened with his old team - the way they’d just stared at him when he’d sent that toss towards them. The way they’d _given up on him_ like everyone he'd ever known had done at some point, too. How had their faces looked when they’d stared back at him in contempt?

If Hinata had been on the verge of some sort of revelation, the thoughts disintegrated when Kageyama shifted, pressing Hinata further into the wall until he couldn't speak at all, driving all of the remaining breath out from him. Kageyama’s body was so heavy and so unbearably _warm_ , pressed up against the entire surface area of Hinata’s backside. He was so big and all-consuming, and Hinata could feel _everything_ in that moment - the way that Kageyama’s chest heaved as his breathing spiraled out of control, the frantic beating of his heart, the muscles shifting under his skin - all he could see was Kageyama, all he could hear, feel, smell, _taste_ , it was all Kageyama, and it was way, way, _way_ too much. Hinata could feel himself growing light headed, and whether it was from lack of oxygen or from fear, he couldn't be sure. He couldn’t suck in a substantial breath of air for the life of him and his mind was alight with terror - Kageyama was way too close to him, drowning him, and he-- he couldn’t take it a single second longer. In a last ditch effort, Hinata heaved backwards with all of his might. This gave him just enough room to whirl around, rip his arms out of Kageyama's grasp, and then sock Kageyama right in the jaw with his fist.

Hinata had never regretted an action so instantaneously before as he had in that moment.

Kageyama staggered back, hand flying up to grip his smarting jaw. Despair and regret and maybe some oxygen deprivation made Hinata sway on his feet. It had been the side of his jaw that Kageyama’s father had hit during a particularly bad argument months ago. Hinata desperately wanted to take it back - how could he have just done that? Oh god, oh _god_. Suddenly Kageyama whirled back around to face Hinata, lip curled back, and--

Hinata was wholly taken aback by the _look_ on Kageyama's face. Hinata's brain automatically rushed to interpret it, but-- it was just so... so terrifying, the air around him was practically warping.

Fury. Anger. Resentment. Dejection. Regret.

_Shame._

Kageyama had _never_ looked at him like that before. Dimly, Hinata registered a dampness on his own cheeks. When had he started crying?

It had just been too much. He'd gotten too close. Kageyama hadn't even really _done_ anything, hadn't even hurt him, not really. He'd just pinned him, but it was too similar a position to one that Hinata could only have ever dreamed of being in, a fantasy held close to his heart that he'd indulge only on late nights under the sheets, a hand shoved far down below the waistband of his boxers, gripping onto himself for dear life, and he'd have to remind himself over and over like a mantra to keep it inside, don’t let it out, don’t gasp too loud--

Kageyama had said something just then, but Hinata had missed it, too caught up in his own panic to register what was going on. He just blinked back dumbly, ashamed of the tears that dripped out of his eyes and onto the floor. Kageyama just scoffed, before storming past, muttering on the way out;

"I knew it. I was right _all along_. There's just no way."

Hinata stood there, hiccuping as he cried long after Kageyama had left. Hinata had somehow managed to screw everything up, but he didn't even know what he'd done wrong. Clearly it had to have been something terrible to get Kageyama to blow his lid like that. He went over the previous conversation in his head - he'd only been trying to be honest. He must have said something really wrong, but he couldn't understand. He didn’t know where exactly things had gone astray, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the atmosphere between them had been strained for several weeks already. Something Hinata had said earlier had just tripped the final wire.

_He said I don't listen, but I don't understand what that means._

Hinata always thought they'd been great at communication. They talked regularly and openly, didn’t they?

(Hinata pointedly ignored the part of himself that piped up about the very large secret of his own that he had been and was still trying desperately to keep hidden.)

Then again, Kageyama had also said that just because something was said out loud, that didn't mean Hinata would understand, or that Hinata even _could_ understand.

It was communication without comprehension. No matter how much Hinata tried to analyze, he'd never been good at reading between the lines, and he had always been a little bit dense, try as he might. This fact had been established many times over; it wasn't something he could change.

If he could have, then he would have.

"Mrhh?" Shou warbled up at him, a confused and uncharacteristically quiet sound for the usually boisterous little cat. The cats looked completely bewildered and alarmed, staring up at Hinata almost like they were expecting some sort of explanation. Hinata scooped Shou up and into his arms, pressing his face into his soft fur as he heaved out another sob. Shou wiggled around a bit, clearly a bit uncomfortable about the tears and snot soaking into his fur, but eventually relented with a quiet purr, allowing Hinata to hold and bounce him and make a mess of his poor coat.

In some strange way, Kageyama had been reaching out, but not in a way that Hinata could understand.

And now, he had no idea what to do to fix it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Insert me here hunkering down in my bunker as I prepare for all of you lovely wonderful readers to come kick my ass into next week for this one.
> 
> Poor boys. They’re both trying so hard. If you’re feeling a little nervous from how things have ended up, hold onto that feeling for now and just trust me! To all of you who have rewarded me with your attention and invested your feelings into this story up until now, I’ll hold your heart carefully, so just hang in there. :) I also have a surprise for you guys at the end of the epilogue. I’ll make all of the hurt worth it, promise!
> 
> Also holy crap I hit 100 kudos with this story! I can’t believe that 100 people have read my story and liked it enough to leave kudos. When I wrote this it was mostly for myself, remember at the very beginning of the story when I said it was self-indulgent? I was like, well, time to give me everything I’ve ever wanted! So I did. I could only hope that maybe at least one or two people might give it a chance… I remember waking up the morning after I’d posted the first three chapters and seeing 15 kudos and being just so blown away and thrilled that people like this story. So thank you so much for all of the support, and extremely big thanks to everyone who has been leaving me feedback. It makes me feel so so good and happy, seriously it makes my whole day even getting just a one line comment, and then there's you guys who leave me those big beautiful long comments and slay me on the spot! You guys are the best. 
> 
> I’ll see you in two days on Sunday morning. ^u^ We're in the home stretch! Three chapters to go. If I remember right, the whole entire completed fic is just barely under 50K. Phew!


	11. Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata doesn’t give up.

\- ♠️ -

Talk

Christmas was next to pass after Kageyama's birthday on the solstice. Hinata and Kageyama had exchanged texts, but that was more or less the extent of their communication. Kageyama hadn't come over for a few days. It was winter break and this time of year _was_ busy, after all, Hinata reasoned. No need to get all bent out of shape about it.

Everything was going to be _fine_ \--

_“You act like everything's fine when it isn't. You take no responsibility for your actions at all_.”

...Maybe things weren't fine.

“Mrnh?” Said Shou, hopping up beside Hinata where he lay sprawled out on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan spinning around and around and around. Hinata shifted himself to accommodate him, curling his body into a spooning position to offer a sheltered spot for him to curl up.

“Mrhh,” said Shou again through narrowed eyes, staying right where he was. Tobi and Shou were both restless, having no concept of why Kageyama would suddenly stop visiting them. Hinata wished he could explain it to them - but then again, what would he say? He felt just as lost.

“Mrrrhhn!” Shou interjected yet again with a lash of his tail.

“I get it! I know!” Hinata hissed in reply, wiping at his eyes, and then sighed. He didn’t know why he’d said it; as things stood, clearly he didn’t know anything at all.

Shou finally relented after receiving at least some sort of response, kneading a spot before turning in place to throw himself against Hinata’s side and roll onto his back. Looking into his eyes, Hinata thought Shou almost looked kind of sad, but maybe it was just his own reflection staring back at him. He busied himself petting him and stroking him behind the ears as he continued to space out.

New Years was on the immediate horizon. Something about how quickly it was approaching was making Hinata antsy. Kageyama still hadn't come over. Hinata had no idea what the future held, but he knew that he wanted to be spending as much time with Kageyama while he still had the opportunity. Soon he might not even be able to see him at all for months on end. Hinata hoped that Kageyama would still want to see him at all, in lieu of their recent argument. It was still fresh in Hinata's mind, and Kageyama was obviously still furious, too - Hinata had sent him a few more texts, but he never received any replies.

And then, in no time at all, it was New Years Eve.

The divorce had been finalized weeks ago, so Hinata no longer felt afraid to waltz on up to Kageyama's house once the silence had become too much to stand, and he did exactly that. Kageyama didn't answer when Hinata knocked. The door was locked when he tried it, so he went around back, letting himself in through the gate. He remembered the first time he had stood here in Kageyama's backyard a year ago, peering in through that glass door to see Kageyama in his glasses and monkey slippers, watering can clutched in his hand. He smiled at the memory, half expecting to be greeted with the familiar sight, but Kageyama wasn't there. The back door was locked.

He called Kageyama’s cellphone. He didn't pick up, so Hinata sent him a text when he couldn't think of any other option. It felt weak when he'd already sent so many to no avail.

Hinata

Are u avoiding me????

He hovered around in the backyard for another five minutes, eyes eventually landing on the sunflower he had given Kageyama, or at least, what was left of it.

Hinata’s breath hitched in his throat upon recognizing it for what it was - it hardly resembled that delicate and kindred little sprout he’d worked so hard to nurture last winter, or the tall, proud bloom of yellow gold and green that Kageyama had sent him pictures of in the summertime. It was thoroughly dead, frozen solid in a state of decay by the frigid winter air.

It made sense that it would have died by now, it was already the end of December, but the sight or the shriveled up brown stalk with its petalless flower head made Hinata's heart feel like it was shattering into pieces. Something about it just made Hinata want to cry, but he vehemently stuffed down the urge. _It’s just a flower_ , he told himself. _There’s no need to get all upset about it._

Feeling creepier by the minute the longer he stood with no response, he figured he should probably get going. It was getting late, and the winter sun had already set behind the horizon, leaving pinkish streaks across the clouds.

He had only just left through the gate when he got a reply.

Kageyama

no

A one word text. Great. Still, a reply was a reply.

Hinata

where r u??

Kageyama

around

why

Hinata

im in ur yard! let me in

come onnnn it's new years

can’t we just talk :(

Kageyama

what the fuck. you creep, you can't just hang out in people's yards

the neighbours will call the cops on you for loitering

Hinata

i will loiter all i want thank u very much

i kno ur home rn the light in ur room is on!

let me in

i swear i will climb ur house like a vine!!!!

ill get a really big rock and break ur window and climb in

kageyamaaaaaaaaaaa

!!!!!

He was in the process of sending another spam text when he heard Kageyama's front door open. Hinata all but sprinted around the corner to leap up onto the porch, more or less materializing out of nowhere from Kageyama's perspective, because he let out a startled "ha--" before snapping his mouth shut. Hinata stared for a moment; Kageyama was standing just in the doorway, arm braced against the frame as if blocking the entry. Hinata’s eyes darted immediately to Kageyama’s jaw; it was a little bit yellowish which meant there had definitely been a bruise there from where Hinata had punched him, but it had mostly healed. Hinata swayed slightly on his toes as he felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over him - he’d need to apologize for that later, but for the moment, he pushed it aside. Hinata took a deep breath, braced himself, and threw an accusatory finger at Kageyama.

"You've been avoiding me!"

"No I haven't," Kageyama responded coolly.

"Don't lie to me! You haven't come over to my house and you haven't been responding to my texts!"

"I've been busy."

"What's your _problem?_ "

"What's _your_ problem?" Kageyama barked back sharply and Hinata couldn't help but flinch. "Is it so weird to want some alone time?"

"Yes, it is, because it's _unusual_ for you! You've been coming over nearly every day for months! Did something happen? Is it because I punched you--"

"No! Everything's fine!" Kageyama cut him off.

"Why are you being so weird then? I was just worried!"

"Well, no one asked you to worry about me! I don't need your-- your _pity--_ "

"Pity? Pity about _what_ \-- We're _friends!_ Why would I pity you?"

The glare that Kageyama shot at him could make flowers wilt.

"No one was around to worry about me when I was a kid. I don't need anyone's worry now, either. I've always been _fine_ on my own."

"How is that fine? What on earth are you even talking about?"

Kageyama appeared to be losing his composure. "No one-- no one needs to care about me. I don't need it."

"Dummy,” Hinata muttered. “I don't care whether or not you think you need it. _I_ care about you. So can we please just talk about this without yelling at each other?"

This just seemed to make Kageyama angry again. Hinata didn't understand what he kept doing so _wrong._ "That's not--! I don't--..."

"Kageyama. What's _wrong_."

"I can't do this right now."

"Kageyama. I'm here for you, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. Because we're _friends_ , right?" Kageyama spat. Hinata couldn't figure out why he sounded so upset. They _were_ still friends, weren't they? "And friends just have to be in each other's space all the time. Friends have to share _everything_ with each other. Friends have to make everything _difficult!_ "

Hinata was confused and getting sick of this directionless argument. He ducked under Kageyama's arm and ran right into the house.

"What the fuck--!" Kageyama rounded on him, "--are you doing!"

"You're being really weird and really, really mean!" Hinata wailed. "I don't know what's gotten into you but I'm not leaving until I find out!"

"I'm gonna beat your sorry ass to a pulp if you don't get out of my house _right fucking now_ \--"

"No!" Hinata yelped back, bounding up the stairs three steps at a time. He heard Kageyama curse behind him, then the door slamming shut, and furious footsteps following after him not far behind. Hinata shrieked, running straight into Kageyama's room, and-- perhaps trying to hide here was a terrible idea, actually. Trying to think, Hinata lunged towards the door, slamming it shut and sitting heavily down in front of it like a human barricade. He'd only just plopped down when Kageyama flung open the door with way more force than Hinata had braced himself for, sending him bowling over into a heap over the carpeted floor. The door ricocheted against the door stopper which made its typical _brrrrmrrm_ as it vibrated back and forth. Hinata looked up from the spot he'd landed to find Kageyama staring down at him with a murderous gleam in his eyes, and Hinata thought that he had probably never been so terrified in his whole entire eighteen years of life.

Kageyama hoisted him up by the shirt collar, crouching down to bring Hinata's face right up close to his own. Hinata could feel Kageyama's hot breath against his face.

"And what," Kageyama hissed under his breath, "do you think you're doing? Did you think you could hide in _my_ house?"

Hinata gulped, already feeling his eyes starting to swim with tears, and they'd barely even gotten to talking. "You've been avoiding me! You got so mad at me and, and-- I didn't understand, and I've been thinking it over for days and I can't even sleep, I don't know what I did wrong but I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings and I’m also really sorry that I hit you, you were just-- you were being really scary but that’s not an excuse so I’m sorry about that too, and yes you're right I'm stupid and I know that but I can't figure it out on my own but I want to fix it because you-- you're so-- you're important to me and I hate fighting with you, I'm _scared--_ I'm so scared you hate me and don't want me around anymore and I'll go away if you want me to but I just want things to be normal again because _I miss you_ \--"

Kageyama let Hinata drop back to the ground where he fell directly onto his ass, letting out a dry sob as he went. He wasn't crying quite yet, but that was likely going to change soon if this didn't get sorted out quickly. He was afraid to look up, afraid of the look that he would find on Kageyama's face. He tried to think of a softer version of Kageyama to comfort himself, maybe the one that smiled at him so sweetly on rare occasions - it was a thought that always calmed him down, but it felt so distant from reality at that moment that it fizzled out almost immediately.

Kageyama let out a huff as he sat down several feet away, and Hinata finally raised his watery eyes. Kageyama was holding his face in a hand, and he heaved a huge sigh before finally looking back up at Hinata. The anger had vanished, just like that, and all that was left in its place was exhaustion. The silence stretched out between them for what felt like hours, but was in reality probably only about half a minute. Hinata took the time to get himself under control, sniffling back the snot that had come with the watery eyes, and wiping at them until they came away dry.

"...You missed me?" Was what Kageyama eventually asked.

Hinata sighed in relief. " _Yes_ , oh my god. I thought-- I was so scared that you weren't going to talk to me anymore. All I've wanted for days is to just see you again, or to talk to you at the very least." Maybe the admission was too honest, but Hinata didn't care. "Are you okay, though? I've been so worried-- and here you are giving me crap about being on your own. You think I'd just leave you like that?"

Kageyama didn't respond at first. "Well, you were going to leave me eventually."

"Oh my god. Kageyama, no." Hinata tried to laugh to lighten the atmosphere, but it just sounded choked. "I didn't mean to freak you out, I didn't, honest. I'm not-- I'm not going to leave you. Maybe-- maybe we won't be going to the same school, but you seriously thought I was just gonna abandon you? I thought you knew me better than that."

One side of Kageyama's mouth twitched upwards, but Hinata didn't understand what emotion was being displayed on his face. "Because I'm your _best friend_ , right?"

"Yes! Yes, you are." Hinata willed Kageyama to understand him. "You're so important to me! I'll always be here. Even if we're not face to face. I promise I’ll always be your friend."

"I'm that important to you?"

"Um, yes? Of course?"

Kageyama smiled, but his eyebrows were tense, and his eyes didn't crinkle like it did when it was a real smile. Hinata felt his heart plummet. What had he done now?

Kageyama actually laughed, but it was hollow sounding. "I really, really don't want to hear that from you right now," was his response.

Hinata blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"If you can't figure it out on your own, that's not my problem."

"But-- Huh?! _Yes_ it _is!_ I just--... Why won't you talk to me? Can't you just say what's on your mind? You know you can tell me anything. We're--"

"Don't say it."

"We're _friends!_ What's the matter with you? Are you saying we're not? Because that's awful. I'm gonna keep being your friend whether you want me to or not, you-- you jerk!"

The look that Kageyama shot at him was icy, but Hinata thought that, for at least a moment, Kageyama truly looked _sad_. "I really, really don't want to hear that from you," he repeated again, voice little more than a whisper when he spoke.

Hinata opened his mouth as if to make some sort of retort to that, but as he caught sight of Kageyama's face, the words died in his throat. 

"You're so stupid, Hinata." The statement was neither angry nor said with any heat behind it. It was just a simple observation, like a person might comment about the weather.

Kageyama sighed defeatedly, and after a moment, he looked up at Hinata with a kinder gaze for the first time in weeks. Hinata felt his heart leap into his throat at the possibility that Kageyama might finally be willing to give him a chance.

"Listen." Kageyama at least sounded less confrontational, so that was a start - but he just sounded weary now, and Hinata wasn't sure whether that was better or worse. "You want to talk, right? Fine, then. Let's talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is on the shorter side because originally it was a part of the previous one. It had been getting quite lanky so I split it into two. Sorry for no resolution yet, but boy oh boy, it’s coming, believe me. Good luck until next chapter! 
> 
> The danger of having a big fight like these two is that a nice clean resolution can be difficult to pull off, but I’ve worked really hard on the ending, so I hope you guys like it. Next chapter is more or less the finale, not to mention the longest chapter in the whole story at around 6.6K, and the chapter where this fic gets upped to a mature rating. God, I've been waiting so long to get to upload that chapter, I'm so stupidly excited, you have no idea! I hope you’ll all find the resolution of this story satisfying. It has an epilogue too for good measure which is roughly another 4.4K. Did you know that originally when I came up with the idea for this fic and was writing out my notes, I thought I’d be making it a oneshot around 10K? That didn’t happen at all, like not even close. The thing about me is once I get going, I really really get going, and now I’m sitting here with my 50K fic like, damn, where’d all this content come from? Well.
> 
> See you in two days on Tuesday afternoon! <3
> 
> Also, PS! OMG user @judeisfanboytrash has started writing a fic inspired a little bit by this one and I literally could not feel more elated!?? Like holy crap!! So you guys should totally go check it out if you have the time. It features trans Hinata which is always a delight to see and features the theme of mutual pining and the desire to get to know each other very closely. So please consider going to take a peek! ^w^ https://archiveofourown.org/works/25375120/


	12. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s finally time to let all the secrets out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viewer discretion advised for this chapter - this is where this fic finally earns its mature rating. It’s also my favourite chapter in this whole story. Enjoy!

\- ♠️ -

Friend

Sitting across from each other in Kageyama's room, a long silence stretched out. Kageyama had agreed to talk, and yet here they were now, neither of them having the guts to be the one to start.

"Kageyama." Hinata decided to just go for it. Kageyama met his eyes, looking tired. "What do I keep doing wrong? I need you to tell me. I'm sorry I'm not smart enough to read between the lines, and I'm sorry I don't understand. I need you to spell it out really, really simply. _Please._ "

Maybe it was how desperate he sounded, but Kageyama finally seemed to respond for the first time in days.

"It's... listen, Hinata. I'm just--” He took a long, deep breath. “I'm frustrated, okay? It's not your fault for not understanding or sensing that. To me... to me, it was obvious, but that's because I was the one feeling it. It was... wrong of me to expect that of you. So I'm sorry."

Hinata blinked. He had never, ever thought that he'd ever hear Kageyama apologize to him, and so genuinely at that. No barbed insults, no calling him a dumbass, no smack on the head. Kageyama ran a hand through his hair, elbow resting on one of his propped up knees.

Kageyama continued. "You... you said that you couldn't stand on your own without me, a long time ago. You said it again recently, too. You were talking about volleyball, but I... I took it to mean... something that you clearly hadn't meant it to. Somewhere along the way, I became reliant on you. I thought you were reliant on me, too. But I was wrong. So I lashed out.” He laughed softly. “I'm not a good person. Sorry." Kageyama offered up a weak half-smile.

He kept going when Hinata couldn't find the words to respond. "When you said we'd go our separate ways, and you wanted me to go - part of me kind of hoped you'd ask me to stay with you. Which is stupid," Kageyama went on. "But I took it as... as if you were saying you don't need me anymore. You-- you're gonna find some new setter to toss to you, because I'll be gone. You'll make new friends. But I'm not like that. I'm not _likable_ like you are. I don't _know_ how to stand on my own, not anymore. I'd been fine for fifteen years, but then you came along. And now that I know what it's like-- what it was like to have you... I don't want to be any other way. But you don't need me the same way that-- that I need you." The words seemed to stick in Kageyama's throat. "And you don't _want_ me like-- Like I--..."

He exhaled shakily, abandoning the rest of that sentence when he tried again. "I've known it all along. I know it's not my place to be angry. It's not you. You didn't do anything wrong, Hinata, it was all me. I'm angry at _myself_. So sorry if I'm a little bit _pissed off_ , and sorry if I'm a little bit _distanced_. I'm just... I'm just trying to prepare myself as best as I can so it doesn't wreck the _shit_ out of me when you leave."

Hinata felt stunned, unable to make himself move. That had almost sounded like-- like a…

The thought cut off when he caught a glimpse of something dripping down from Kageyama's face, leaving tiny wet splatters on the fabric of his sweatpants, and Hinata found himself surging forward without having made the conscious decision to do so in order to wrap his arms around Kageyama.

"Don't cry, Kageyama! I'm sorry! I didn’t know that--... that you..." Hinata didn’t really know where he’d been going with that sentence. His thoughts were running a million miles a minute.

"I'm not-- I'm not crying!" A weak hiccup proved otherwise. "Just-- Get away from me! I can't _take this anymore._ " And then Kageyama shoved Hinata backwards, where he stumbled and fell onto his ass.

Hinata looked back up in shock. There were full blown tears streaming down Kageyama's face now, something that Hinata had seen only once before, after they’d lost that game back in year one - but it had never been quite like this. Kageyama looked completely and utterly _despondent_.

"You're so... you're so fucking annoying." Kageyama's voice was shockingly steady, if a bit thin, at least compared to the horrible expression on his face. Hinata had seen traces of something similar to it in passing before - just quick moments where his face would fall, but it had always been quick to evaporate almost as if it had never been there at all. Hinata had learned a lot about Kageyama in the past several months, and his confidence in identifying Kageyama's complex emotions had grown tenfold, but this was something else entirely. _Lost. Agonized. Defeated_. "You're always shoving yourself into my space! Everywhere I go, I can't get away from you. You piss me off! You drive me fucking insane. I can't stand being around you!" Hinata didn't expect his heart to twist so painfully watching as Kageyama hunched over, hands raising up to clasp at his face, ears bright red as he made his confession. "I'm seriously at my fucking limit."

Somehow the sight was more painful than the barbed words that Kageyama was spitting out - maybe it was because by now, several months late to the punch, Hinata had _finally_ figured it out. 

"Kageyama--"

"Shut _UP!_ " Kageyama lifted his head to shout back at him, making Hinata flinch away. Kageyama's eyes were so _red_. His entire face was red, actually, red right up to his ears and down his neck. "Just... _shut up_. Please," he repeated, softer this time. " _Idiot_. You're making it worse, so just... _Stop._ I’m begging you."

Hinata stared, his eyes feeling oddly hot himself. He wasn't sure he could take much more of this either. Watching Kageyama fall apart and not even being allowed to say anything, to comfort him, hold him - it was agonizing. 

_What is going_ on _between us?_ Hinata wanted to ask. Wanted to beg. But he kept his mouth shut, waiting for Kageyama to collect himself, collect his thoughts. It felt like a long time before Kageyama spoke up again, voice sounding stronger, the only betrayal of his true feelings being his eyes and the dried tear stains on his cheeks.

"From now on-- from now on, I'll be good. I'll be so good." Kageyama's voice hiccuped once.

What the fuck was he talking about.

"I'll be good. And I'll toss to you whenever you want, okay?"

What?

"Kageyama..."

"I'll smile at you when I see you. I'll congratulate your accomplishments. When you get your acceptance letter, we'll celebrate it."

Wait.

"If you choose to date someone then I'll be happy for you."

_No._

"Kageyama."

He was putting up the walls. He was shutting Hinata out. All of the progress-- everything he had worked so hard for, everything that they had built up together--

"I'll be good."

" _Kageyama!"_

It was all falling apart.

"We'll play on the team, we'll keep doing the quick. We'll get to nationals. I'll make sure you're invincible, just like I promised. And... we'll be teammates - no, partners - as we always have."

"Kageyama, _please--!_ " _Please stop._

"I'll keep being your best friend. I'll stay by your side."

"Please--"

"I'll be good, right up until we graduate. And then that'll be it. We'll go--"

" _Stop_ , Kageyama--"

"--We'll go our separate ways, and I won't... I won't burden you with-- With these feelings. That’ll be it." Kageyama sobbed once, and that was when something inside of Hinata finally _snapped._ "I’ll be gone forever, you won't ever have to see me again--"

" _TOBIO!!_ " Hinata screamed out into the empty room, his voice echoing off the walls. " _STOP IT! That’s ENOUGH!!_ "

The sound of Hinata's voice reverberated around the room before dissolving into a strained, oppressive silence. That had shut Kageyama up, finally - he was just staring now, wide eyed. Hinata heaved out a breath, nearly panting, not sure when he had gotten so worked up.

"Kageyama, no - Tobio, _listen to me_." He began to crawl his way back towards Kageyama, who scrambled backwards in a blind panic until he hit the frame of the bed. His eyes were darting back and forth like a cornered animal, ready to bolt. Hinata surged forward to cage him in with his arms braced against the bed frame before he could, fully aware that Kageyama could probably just push past him with that large muscular body of his, but he didn't move. He just sat there petrified and gulped.

"Listen to me, Kageyama," Hinata repeated. "I'm about to do something. I'm about to do something, and in the case that I've completely misunderstood this situation and I've gotten this all very, _very_ wrong, I want you to shove me off of you with all of your power. Push me away and I’ll leave your house immediately." He paused to lick his lips. Kageyama was staring at him like a deer in the headlights, but his eyes darted down to watch the motion. It wasn't often that Hinata was the one to tower over Kageyama, but Kageyama appeared to be doing everything in his power in that moment to make himself small, while Hinata sat up on his knees, leaning over him. They were incredibly close, noses barely centimetres apart, and Hinata could literally feel that Kageyama had stopped breathing. He reminded _himself_ to take a deep breath. "If that happens, that... that thing I just told you to do, we will continue on as normal, going forward. When we meet up again for school, everything will be perfectly normal and _fine_. We'll do all of that stuff you just said. I'll be your best friend. We'll forget all of... this. Right up until we graduate. From there, we can go our separate ways. You won't have to see me anymore." Hinata gestured at nothing and everything all at once. "Do you understand?"

Hinata wondered whether or not Kageyama could even take his dire tone seriously. But judging by Kageyama's petrified stare, he figured it was working well enough, even if he wasn't even sure if Kageyama could even really hear him anymore.

Hinata licked his lips one final time, and slowly, he moved his hands down until they grazed the sides of Kageyama's rib cage gently. Kageyama seemed to take this moment to awaken from his daze, eyes suddenly alight with panic. He surged forward, nearly knocking Hinata back again. "You--! You don't--" Kageyama all but wailed, heaving his body forward as if to barge past Hinata's arms and run off, away from this mess, away from him. 

"Don't you get it, Hinata!?” Kageyama’s voice was breaking into pieces, and it was only then that Hinata realized with complete and utter certainty _exactly_ what he needed to do, right as the words were finally falling out in the open as Kageyama sobbed again;

“Hinata, I _love y--_ "

Hinata grabbed Kageyama by his arms and smashed his lips up against Kageyama's own, maybe a little (or a lot) too forcefully as they bonked noses rather harshly, but Hinata needed to stop Kageyama in his tracks, and stop he did. Kageyama went perfectly still. Hinata corrected the angle of attack to misalign their noses so they weren't pressed directly together, and everything suddenly seemed to fall into place perfectly. Or at least, near perfectly, if only Kageyama would kiss back - or do _something_. Anything.

Hinata had never kissed anyone before, but he'd watched enough... ahem, _videos_ , and been through wikiHow enough times (purely for scientific research purposes, no ulterior motive there, nope) that he had an idea what to do. Kageyama still wasn't moving though, so Hinata shifted back a tad and opened his eyes to find Kageyama staring back at him, face frozen in complete and utter shock. "Hm," said Hinata, having somewhat lost his ability to form critical strings of thought, let alone proper sentences because _holy shit he had just kissed Kageyama on the mouth_ , and instead of thinking more he just closed his eyes to lean back in. He'd instructed Kageyama to push him off if needed and he had not done so thus far. Maybe he was just too stunned, but he trusted that Kageyama would make his intentions clear soon enough. For now--... For now, he'd just been waiting too damn long for this, and he was going to take what he could before he couldn't anymore.

Hinata released his hands from their iron grip on Kageyama's arms and moved an arm around his back to hold him steady. He ran his other free hand up from the bottom of Kageyama's neck, across his cheek, and then back around to the nape, threading his fingers through the short, sleek hair that rested there. He’d always wanted to do that - it was so much softer than Hinata had ever dreamed. He slotted his lips back up against Kageyama's, opening his mouth slightly to try to encourage Kageyama's lips to do the same, or at the very least be more malleable - and finally, _finally_ , Kageyama reacted, tilting his head in, and finally kissed back.

He--... _He kissed back._

They mouthed at each other for what only could have been a few seconds before Kageyama was pushing him away. 

Kageyama was rejecting him. Kageyama was--...

...was pushing him onto the carpeted floor and hovering over him, inches away from his face. Hinata could see the sweat glistening off of him and feel his breath coming out in pants. Hinata's mouth opened, fully intending to say something, _anything_ , but all he could get out was a heady " _mmph!_ " as Kageyama was back on him in seconds. This third time that their mouths came together was no less electric than the first two, and when Kageyama chose to run his tongue across Hinata's bottom lip as a wordless question of intent, Hinata felt his whole entire stomach flip, the feeling of the floor having dropped out from under him engulfing his whole body and sending his thoughts spiraling. It was with a dreamlike sense of time having slowed down that Hinata parted his lips open and Kageyama wasted no time in slipping his tongue into his mouth to run itself across the length of Hinata's. If he thought that the butterflies from moments ago were overwhelming, he was completely overtaken now, feeling like his whole stomach and throat had been filled with cotton fluff. With weak, trembling arms, Hinata lifted his hands to gingerly hold the sides of Kageyama's head, brushing up against his cheekbones, Kageyama opening his mouth wider against his, Hinata thinking to himself that there was probably no better feeling in the world than this. He could barely believe what was happening. The kiss was sloppy and amateurish, but to Hinata it was absolutely _perfect_.

So he’d been right about his hunch. He’d figured it all out just in time.

Hinata had no qualms in letting Kageyama direct the pacing of their kiss, feeling more or less unsubscribed from reality in that given moment. He felt completely overwhelmed with feeling. Maybe he’d died - maybe Kageyama had killed him and this was heaven because Hinata could not for the life of him figure out how they’d gone from such a horrifically out of control situation to floating on clouds. Kageyama's weight suddenly fell on him, causing him to make what he expected would be a grunt, but rather came out as a humming groan into Kageyama's mouth than anything. Kageyama stalled for a brief moment at the vibration, making a noise of his own, some high pitched little tiny keen that Hinata might have missed if he hadn't been so invested in this moment otherwise. Hinata wondered if Kageyama was unraveling as much as he was, although the thoughts were jumbled in his head and hard to piece together, but somewhere distantly in his mind he was at least able to acknowledge that Kageyama's arms had most definitely just given out just now, so yeah, he was probably feeling pretty undone himself.

Hinata eventually regained enough feeling back in his own arms that he was able to move them to hug around Kageyama's neck, and he nearly lost himself completely when he felt Kageyama's long fingers sliding up the sides of his torso now that Hinata's arms were out of the way. He was so gentle, so _careful_ as his hands ran upwards to the area of his chest, coming forward just a bit so he could stroke Hinata with his thumbs just on the outside of his pectoral muscles. Kageyama didn't stop moving his lips or tongue for a moment, but Hinata couldn't help but still his own motions as he opened his mouth wider and gasped, Kageyama moving away just by a centimetre. Hinata's eyes opened slowly and he was greeted by the sight of Kageyama looking back at him through his eyelashes, eyes blown and dark, mouth parted slightly with a bead of spit at the corner of his lips. Hinata felt his stomach drop out.

He tried again to say something, but all that came out was a warbled moan. He felt his cheeks heating up more than they already were if that were somehow possible because he felt like he was completely on fire already, but that noise had just been so shamefully lewd and embarrassing-- But it appeared to awaken something primal in Kageyama, eyes widening a fraction but seeming to flash with _something_ as his facial features changed just the slightest amount.

"Say my name again. Like you-- like you did before."

He was seriously asking Hinata to say something _now?_ Because that had clearly gone stellar in the last two attempts. Kageyama was continuing to stroke his chest through the fabric of his shirt which was making it hard to think. But the way that Kageyama was looking at him, eyes so expectant and full of that strange emotion, made him want to at least try. He'd do _anything_ to keep Kageyama looking at him like that.

"Nngh--"

It was a noble attempt given the circumstances. Kageyama stilled his hands, moving back another centimetre. Hinata wanted to chase after him, anything to get his mouth back on his, but he found himself paralyzed.

"Hinata." Kageyama said it again, voice soft and low and containing a note of strain. If there was any feeling left in his arms and legs, it was gone now as they were replaced by jelly.

"Kageyama--" Hinata was finally able to choke out, voice sounding weak and raspy.

"No. My _name_ , Hinata. Say my _name_."

It clicked into place.

"Tobio," he said, voice growing steadier.

"Again."

Kageyama's lips were back on his before he could even open his mouth to speak again. Kageyama pulled back a hair's width, and Hinata took the moment to say it again.

"Tobio."

The lips were back on his again, pecking him softly. Hinata allowed a brief moment to wonder how Kageyama was so damn good at this, but then again, Hinata had no frame of reference, and literally anything that Kageyama could do to him right now would probably feel good.

"Tobio. Tobio... Tobio, I love you--"

Kageyama sucked hard on his neck, leaving Hinata gasping for air and wondering when the hell Kageyama managed to get his mouth over there. Not that he was complaining, especially as Kageyama began to lick his way down Hinata's neck towards his collarbone, sucking at the skin sweetly with just the slightest threat of teeth. Hinata had more or less checked out from existence again by the time that he felt strong arms wrapping around his body and lifting him up.

Hinata let himself be carried over and placed gingerly on the bed. He looked up blearily as Kageyama hopped in after him, looking beautiful and angelic under the glow of the desk lamp and the remnants of the dying sun.

"Say that again. Say you love me. Please." Kageyama was straddling Hinata's hips, looking down at him, voice soft and nearly inaudible.

"I love you, Tobio."

"Again."

"I love you. I'm _in_ love with you.” Hinata suddenly felt it urgent to confess absolutely everything to Kageyama at that moment. He wanted, no, he _needed_ Kageyama to know. After everything that had just happened, Hinata couldn’t stop all of his buried feelings from surging forward. "I’m in love with you. I have been for-- mmph, for a while.” He stalled as Kageyama bent down to kiss him over his pulse point. “I always hoped I’d be able to tell you one day. I just-- I want-- mmh..." Kageyama's teeth on his throat broke his train of thought.

"How long?"

God, how much longer was he going to keep this up? Hinata felt like he was swimming through a dense fog in order to get his vocal chords to sync up with his brain. The feelings were all there, threatening to choke him, but Kageyama’s gentle hands on him kept him breathing.

"Nh-- before we found the cats. Back when I started asking you all of those weird questions. I liked you then. Loved you more every day. I'm sorry, I really am. But I’ve loved you all along."

"That long, huh?" Kageyama paused to leave a long kiss below Hinata's ear. "Don't say sorry. I love you too, Hinata. _I'm_ sorry. I didn't realize it as soon as you did. And I'm sorry I didn't just tell you. I was-- I was scared.” He took a shaky breath. “I didn’t want to say something and… and _ruin_ everything. I didn’t want you to leave. So I didn’t say anything at all." He admitted quietly, and then moved back to laugh softly. It made Hinata's stomach flip all over again - god, he’d missed that sound so much. "All along we were both going through it, huh?"

Hinata wasn’t sure how Kageyama was able to construct such strong sentences in their current state. "That's not fair, Tobio. You have to-- ah! Say my name, too." Kageyama sucking on his earlobe had caused a minor short circuit in Hinata's brain. The idea of what could have happened had they spoken their feelings sooner was too much. They had so much time to make up.

"I love you, Shouyou."

Oh, _god._

"Come here, Tobio." Hinata was almost begging, voice watery as he fought back tears. He had never even considered that hearing those words said back to him could be possible. He'd never even given thought to the way it would feel to hear Kageyama say them, and so sweetly at that, yet here they were. It was real - _this_ was real, and it was finally happening after all those months spent only being able to dream of it and yearn for all that he could not have. It was real. It was all _finally_ real. "Please, come here."

Kageyama obliged, Hinata humming happily as Kageyama's lips finally met his again. Kageyama settled his body between Hinata's legs, laying on top of him chest to chest, and Hinata had at least half a mind to feel sheepish and partially mortified by the state of his nether region, which Kageyama was now laying directly on top of. 

If Kageyama noticed, which he absolutely one hundred percent without a doubt would have because it was impossible to miss, he didn't say anything, back to exploring Hinata's mouth with sloppy enthusiasm. When Kageyama nipped Hinata's lip, Hinata was mortified again to feel his hips jerk up involuntarily. Kageyama pulled his head back, and Hinata tried to quell the horror building up in him, about to apologize, oh god, he had taken something good and totally just made it weird-- But when he opened his eyes again, Kageyama was looking distinctly... askew. His hair was mussed up from where Hinata had been absentmindedly running his hands through it, his cheeks red, lips puffy and glistening in the low light, and his _eyes_ \- his eyes were alight with what Hinata could only describe as _need_. Hinata felt another spark in his hips, unable to stop his body's subconscious desire to get some friction. And then Kageyama _groaned_.

Questions seemed to be swimming in their eyes as they stared back at each other. Questions like, _is this okay? Are you alright? Are you okay with this? Is this too fast for you? How far do you want to go? Because I have been waiting for this for too damn long and I swear to god if you don’t stop_ looking _at me like that--_

Wordlessly, Hinata thrust his groin up to meet Kageyama's, the much needed contact of their hips and erections feeling electric. This time it was a question more than anything, and Kageyama answered back by grinding his hips down, leading them both to gasp.

Kageyama looked positively beautiful like this; bangs hanging down, eyes closed and brows furrowed, mouth open as he panted heavily.

Their lips met again, but as they thrust against each other, grinding together in tandem, it was hard to keep the sense of mind to kiss with any degree of accuracy. Instead they mostly ended up panting against each other's mouths, getting in a messy wet kiss or three whenever they could. It was sloppy but perfect, and as their rhythm began to grow steadier and more controlled, Hinata couldn't keep his eyes focused or his moans in check. He was aware that he was probably being way too noisy, worried that somehow the neighbours would hear. Kageyama was much more quiet, at least compared to him that was, his groans being soft and low, reverberating deep in his throat.

Hinata could feel the warmth growing in the pit of his stomach, a dense coil that was unraveling. He knew that he would come soon, and if Kageyama's frantic thrusting was anything to go by then Kageyama was likely in the same boat. Hinata felt simultaneously embarrassed and yet amazed that he'd gotten into such a state without Kageyama's hands ever even being on him. Just rutting himself against Kageyama's body had him completely heady and undone - how could it not? It was Kageyama, after all, and this was just so much better than what his dreams ever could have come up with, and they even still had all of their clothes on; Hinata didn't have even half of the mind just then to even be able to imagine a scenario without them. Peering up through a daze, he watched Kageyama move. His eyes were nearly closed, mouth open slightly, cheeks flushed, and he was panting out in heavy breaths. He looked absolutely gorgeous like this, facial features soft and so vulnerable as he thrust his hips forward and back, matching Hinata's rhythm step for step. Hinata brought him closer with his arms around his neck, feeling hazy with affection and pleasure with the way Kageyama was working against him, so beautiful and perfect. In that moment, Hinata thought he'd found a home right in Kageyama's heart; no matter where they ended up, as long as there was a promise of them being together again in time, he could accept any burden thrown his way. Hinata wished he could share his revelation then with Kageyama, but he just couldn't make the words come out in the way he wanted, so instead he just cupped a hand to the back of Kageyama's head and moved the other to his back and pulled him in as tight as he could. Hinata never ever wanted to let him go, and he prayed that the sentiment would come through in the way that he gripped Kageyama and moaned little sweet nothings into his ears. Hinata didn't miss the way that Kageyama's hips seemed to stutter and the way that his ears somehow had turned even redder than before.

It was Kageyama who came first, and Hinata had the pleasure to watch as it happened. Kageyama moved back as his eyes squeezed shut until he was directly in Hinata's line of sight. He grit his teeth as his body stiffened and his hips spasmed against Hinata, and he let out his loudest noise yet, something that sounded suspiciously like "Shouyou--", but strangled and high for Kageyama's usual pitch. Kageyama shook as he came in his pants, riding out the aftershocks by grinding himself against Hinata's pelvis. When Kageyama sat back all the way and opened his eyes to meet Hinata, Hinata's needy gaze and teeth biting his lip must have alerted him to the unsolved problem in his own pants. Watching that display had been spectacular, but with the loss of friction he now found himself teetering precariously on the edge. Kageyama was likely sensitive and unable to continue grinding, and Hinata could practically see the cogs turning in his brain as he decided what to do. It was with a gulp that Kageyama lifted his trembling arm, extending his hand towards Hinata to hover just above his groin. He looked at Hinata as if to ask for permission, and if the pleading look hadn't been enough to convince Kageyama that it was okay, the frantic nodding surely was.

Kageyama's hand met his erection through the fabric of his pants tentatively, and Hinata immediately bucked into it. Kageyama rubbed him, pressure of his hand growing from feather light to wonderfully pleasant as he gained confidence, Hinata's mewling probably working wonders for ensuring him that _fuck yes_ he wanted this.

It didn't take long at all for Hinata to reach his peak again either, hovering on the point of orgasm for several long moments that completely wiped out all traces of thought until he finally fell over the edge, dry thrusting up against Kageyama's hand with a shout as he finally came. His eyes were open but his vision was blurred, but for a moment he hazily caught a glimpse of Kageyama looking down at him with awe - awe over _him_ \- painted over his beautiful face as Hinata spilled into his pants. Kageyama expertly rode out the aftershocks with him, easing off the pressure slowly so as not to pull away prematurely, and once Hinata whimpered from the over-sensitivity, he pulled back.

For a brief moment Hinata worried that the next moment would be awkward, but he hadn't needed to bother with doubt. Kageyama fell down beside him, quickly gathering Hinata’s smaller form up into his arms as Hinata recovered. Kageyama was peppering kisses across his face and once Hinata had come back down to earth, he found himself breaking out into a big, dopey grin. Of course Kageyama would be all soft like this after sex, if what they just did could even be classified as such. For all of the talk he pulled, Kageyama could be unbelievably kind and gentle, and Hinata had the first hand experience to back up his claim.

"I love you," Hinata assured again, just in case Kageyama was doing that self-doubt thing of his again. Hinata's eyes were closed, they had been for a while, but they snapped open when he felt a drop of something wet splash him. He looked up to find Kageyama hovering next to him, eyes swimming with tears.

"Oh my god, Tobio-- err, Kageyama, are you alright?"

Kageyama kissed him long and heavy right on the lips, and Hinata was relieved that at least it didn't seem like he was having second thoughts. The tears fell as his eyes shut, leaving tiny little plops as they dripped onto Hinata's cheeks and down onto the sheets below. Kageyama's voice was thick when he pulled back to speak.

"It's Tobio. Please--"

Hinata corrected himself instantly. "Tobio, are you alright?"

Kageyama laughed, the sound bubbly and choked up with snot, but Hinata just found it endearing. "I've wanted to do this," Kageyama rasped, "for so long. I can't believe it-- that you... you--..."

"I can't believe you like me back," Hinata supplied for him and Kageyama both when it seemed that his words were failing him.

"I _love_ you, you idiot." There it was, finally, all out in the open. The insults were back, but Hinata didn't feel offended, not in the slightest. He never did when Kageyama already threw out these jabs whenever there was space in a sentence as if it were going out of style, but the word this time was just so padded in affection that it made him feel giddy. "I didn't know what to do with myself. It was too much. I'm sorry I lashed out. I've never been good at this kind of stuff." His voice had grown hiccupy. “But you know that.”

Hinata stroked Kageyama's cheeks in what he hoped was a soothing gesture, unable to speak.

"I'm sorry," Kageyama tried to laugh, but it sounded shaky. "I'm so lame."

"Only a little," Hinata offered softly, voice thick with emotion - this earned him a glare, but its effect was diminished by Kageyama’s red eyes and tear streaked cheeks. Hinata carded his hand through Kageyama's hair softly, encouragingly, and Kageyama settled down to lay his chin onto Hinata's chest. Kageyama’s hair really _was_ soft, just like Hinata had always imagined it would be, and so thick. Hinata watched in amazement as Kageyama leaned into his touch and closed his eyes, nuzzling himself further into Hinata’s hand as he pet him. If it were even possible at that point, Hinata felt himself swell even further with affection for the beautiful man in his arms. After a long moment, Hinata spoke again.

“Sorry that I punched you.”

Kageyama peeked one eye open at him. “Sorry that I shoved you against a wall,” Kageyama countered with a sly glance, followed by a weak little laugh and a loud sniffle.

“Touché,” Hinata yielded, too contented in that moment to fall for the bait. _Of course_ he’d try to make apologizing into a competition.

"You liked me all this time," Kageyama said, finally starting to calm down. "I thought it was just me. I… I thought at first that you might like me too, but you just kept repeating the thing about us being _friends_. I had been dropping hints, but it just seemed like you were ignoring them altogether. You were always just saying... we're friends, best friends. I thought that was you trying to get _me_ to take a hint."

Hinata stared back in horror. "I was-- I was trying to keep it a secret! How I felt. I didn't--... I didn't ever even think I had a chance." To think, his words had just been hurting Kageyama all this time. Their argument came rushing back to him. Hinata's denial had grown so consuming that he couldn't see what was right in front of him.

Kageyama gave him a sheepish little smile in return. “I told you I was gay and you barely reacted. Then you freaked out about sleeping in the same bed.”

Hinata’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “I didn’t want to creep you out! Besides, you said it wasn’t like that!”

“I just said that because I didn’t want to creep you out either.”

"Oh my god!” Hinata wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “I thought... I was always trying to get you to _talk_ to me. I wanted us to be able to be honest with each other. Meanwhile, we both were hiding this big, stupid secret! And here I thought we were doing pretty great at the whole communication thing."

Kageyama laughed, the noise vibrating against Hinata's chest.

"We're dumb," Kageyama agreed. "We could have been doing this the entire time."

"Are you going to cry after every time we do 'this'?" Hinata couldn't help but ask.

This earned Hinata a smack on the chest. Well, there went the soft moment. It was nice while it had lasted. A comfortable silence settled in after that.

As they lay there, minutes stretching out, Hinata slowly began to feel more and more uncomfortable due to the mess in his pants that was rapidly growing cold. Kageyama seemed to be as well judging by the way he was squirming, so it was with great reluctance that Hinata stood up off the bed. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself once he had, but Kageyama had him covered, offering Hinata a fresh pair of his own boxers and sweatpants. Hinata blushed as he went into the bathroom to change; he still didn’t feel quite ready to strip out of his boxers in front of Kageyama just yet. They were baggy on him, slipping down only to just be barely caught by his hip bones. He wondered if he should leave, but Kageyama beckoned him back to the bed with a finger, Hinata grinning stupidly as the two of them crawled back in underneath the sheets.

As they lay in bed, Kageyama shifted so that the top of Hinata’s head was resting under his chin, long arms fully enveloping him, and pulled the comforter up and over top of their bodies. Hinata rested his cheek against Kageyama’s chest, breathing in his scent deeply; it was some kind of hazy blend of smoked vanilla, sweat, and blackened cardamom spice, likely from some sort of body wash. He could feel every breath that Kageyama took and hear his heart fluttering. Slowly, the tempo relaxed to a resting pace, the rhythmic sound making Hinata feel sleepy. He was in the process of drifting off to sleep when he heard the telltale sign of Kageyama’s mom entering through the front door, and stiffened.

Kageyama just stroked the back of his head with a hand. “It’s okay, she won’t come in here,” he whispered. “Just be quiet and stay still. You can sneak out in the morning.”

Hinata’s eyelids drooped and he yawned. He was thrilled that Kageyama wasn’t going to kick him out yet - he wanted to stay there and just cuddle forever. He’d dreamed of moments like this so many times over, and now his perseverance and hope had finally borne fruit. He could only just barely feel it when Kageyama planted a kiss on the top of his head, and he giggled softly in response.

“You’re such a baby,” Hinata teased, and then hissed as Kageyama pinched him in the side of his stomach. “Ouch!”

“If you want to stay like this then you’d better shut your mouth before I make you sleep on the floor.”

“Yes sir, very good sir, it won’t happen again, sir!”

“Shut up.” Kageyama shushed him by bending slightly to kiss Hinata's forehead, a contented sigh ruffling Hinata’s hair.

So it was like that that the two of them began to drift off, any threats of future separation feeling distant; in the moment, they were warm and safe under the covers as they lay wrapped up in each other’s arms. Hinata knew they’d have to talk about it in the morning, but for now, Hinata just wanted to bask in Kageyama’s warmth, so much different than the coldness he exuded in his day to day life. Kageyama wasn't known by most to be a warm person, but Hinata knew him well enough now to know how full of it he could be in his own way.

He pulled back just enough to meet Kageyama’s eyes. He blinked back towards him, the soft smile that Kageyama greeted him with turning Hinata’s heart to mush.  
  


"I'm not going to go easy on you when we're on the court just because we're… we're--" Kageyama's whisper trailed off.

"Together?" Hinata supplied. For once, he didn’t stuff down his feeling of hope.

"Yeah," Kageyama returned, smiling as his eyelids fluttered shut. “Yeah. We are.”

Hinata grinned, even if Kageyama couldn't see it - he knew it would flow over into his voice when he spoke, and he also knew that Kageyama understood him well enough by then that he would have felt the happiness bursting out from him either way.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is more or less it, apart from the epilogue! I’ll put more of my closing thoughts in the notes after that, but this has been fun. The epilogue will also make sure to wrap up anything that hasn’t quite been touched on yet - it's another 4.4K chapter because I do not understand how to write in moderation, and besides, I gotta wrap everything up into a nice neat little bow. There’s still some important conversations that these two need to have so that’ll be coming up next.
> 
> Something I always worry about is writing arguments between characters and then having a makeup scene that isn’t up to snuff. Sometimes I read a fic like that and it just makes me think, ‘shit, they didn’t even talk it out, they still have so much to work through! This isn’t satisfying at all, nothing feels resolved!’ So I hope that I can avoid the brunt of that. A recurring theme in this story has been interpersonal communication, and by extension, how sometimes there can be misunderstandings even between two people who are both trying really hard. I’ve wanted their relationship to seem like they’re just… fully comfortable around each other. No more secrets. So come tell me how I did after the epilogue!! <3
> 
> I’ve been mulling over doing a sequel from Kageyama’s perspective to explore some of his own psychology - it’s more or less confirmed that I’m gonna be writing more for these two, I mean, how could I not? You guys have been just so great! Hinata has been a blast to write because I can give him all of these profound observations, but then his actual thoughts and the things he says are just all over the place. He’s so obnoxiously blunt but also just so genuine, he just says whatever comes to mind lol. I think it would be really fun to write from Kageyama’s perspective after all this, since he’s basically been a mystery from Hinata’s perspective. Or I could do some smaller little domestic fics in this ‘timeline’ (smut anyone? Hello? I may or may not have a draft on the go...) or even both. But I guess it depends on whether anyone is interested in more pieces for these two at all. As much as I love to write for myself I really really like the validation of knowing people are reading and enjoying my work. Even if it’s just a few dedicated people, or hell, even just one single person - it makes me so happy. Thank you so much for all of the lovely reception, it’s been a great welcome into this fandom for me ;w; seriously, I love you guys!! 
> 
> Hope ya dig the sorta-smut, too. It’s probably one of the tamest smut scenes ever, I mean they didn’t even take off their clothes. Welp… there’s always those sequels, if anyone is interested. I’d love trying to write more smut! This is my second time doing it but I don’t even know if this counts.
> 
> So see you very soon in that epilogue on Thursday!


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is nothing left to fear because I have you.

\- ♠️ -

Epilogue

Waking up that one morning back on New Years day, Hinata had been greeted to Kageyama’s sleepy face smiling back at him, sunlight pouring over them from through the window. As Hinata blearily rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, Kageyama had lazily blinked at him, eyelashes fluttering gently. He left them closed for a long moment before opening them slowly again, and then repeated the motion a few times. Hinata blinked back in bewilderment before it dawned on him - it was a _slow blink_. Hinata’s face lit up with a grin.

“Did you just say ‘I love you’ to me in cat?”

“Maybe.” Kageyama’s voice was heavy with sleep, but he grinned back (or at least flashed what was Kageyama’s scary version of a grin), before he interrupted himself with a yawn.

Hinata thought his heart might actually burst from the surge of affection that shot through him. “You’re such a dork.” Hinata laughed as he stretched out all over Kageyama, who shoved his arm away when it bumped his nose. Feeling suddenly overcome with joy that he just couldn’t keep to himself, Hinata rolled himself on top of Kageyama, who grunted in annoyance at the added weight on top of him. Hinata nuzzled himself up under Kageyama’s chin - he felt too excited to sit still, rubbing his legs back and forth against the bed sheets to try and burn off some energy. When that didn’t satisfy him, he began to kick his feet up and down to bounce the plush comforter until Kageyama grumbled in irritation and locked his arms around Hinata’s body to pull him snug to his chest, and then rolled them both over until Kageyama was the one on top.

“Why!” Hinata groaned out as Kageyama settled his full weight onto Hinata, winding him and reversing their previous position to shove his own head up under Hinata’s chin. Kageyama nuzzled in briefly to make himself comfortable, soft hairs tickling the underside of Hinata’s neck. Hinata felt distinctly reminded of the cats, and how even aloof little Tobi would seek out a morning snuggle now and then. Then again, Kageyama was huge - maybe he was more like one of those giant dogs who didn’t understand that they were too big to be a lap animal. As Kageyama settled down and his body eventually relaxed, Hinata was surprised that he found the weight atop him to actually be kind of pleasant. Kageyama was large enough to evenly distribute himself across Hinata’s whole body, applying even pressure. It was surprisingly relaxing to be a little bit squished, but maybe that was just because it was Kageyama who was doing the squishing.

So Kageyama was definitely a cuddler - who knew?

“It’s too early for you to be this hyper,” Kageyama mumbled groggily, before letting out a sigh and going still again, like he was about to go back to sleep.

Hinata would have none of it. “Don’t go back to bed!” He said, smacking his hands all over Kageyama’s back. “Wake up and play with me!”

“Oh my _god_ , you’re so annoying,” Kageyama groaned back, but didn’t move. Hinata tried his next best idea, lifting his arms as high as they could go in their compromised position before letting them fall with a resounding slap right onto Kageyama’s ass - or at least where he hoped Kageyama's ass would be, since not only was Kageyama just too damn tall for Hinata to reach, but there was also that humongous plush comforter in the way.

This at least provided results. “What the fuck-- Shouyou!” Kageyama grunted, before lifting his head back to glare. Hinata flashed him a big grin in return. Hearing Kageyama say his name like that never got old.

“Tobio~” Hinata returned in a sing-song voice. Kageyama’s eyes widened a fraction, and Hinata got to enjoy watching his cheeks heat up into a lovely shade of pink.

_We should probably talk about things_ , Hinata had thought as he stretched his muscles out as best as he could, body vibrating slightly under Kageyama.

“Stop that,” Kageyama hissed at him, cheeks now unmistakably red. “It feels weird.”

“So are you like… my boyfriend now?” Hinata asked brightly, pointedly ignoring Kageyama’s sleepy grumbling. Even if he already knew the answer, he wanted to hear Kageyama say it.

Kageyama blinked back at him, before scowling. “Didn’t we already settle this last night?”

“I just wanna hear you say it. Come on, I’ve only been able to dream about this for months! Can’t you just play along?”

Kageyama’s eyelids were hooded as he stared back at Hinata. “So it really was all real? Last night? ...It wasn’t a dream?”

Hinata laughed again. “Um, yes? You were there, weren’t you?”

“Good.” Kageyama’s eyes closed as he settled his cheek back against Hinata’s chest. Hinata was briefly worried that he was about to start dozing off, until he spoke up again. “I love you. Become mine.”

Hinata nearly choked on his spit. Sleepy Kageyama was surprisingly forward, and the edges of his grouchiness were softened out. He’d said it just so… bluntly. “Weren’t you just the one who said we’d already established that?”

“Well, maybe I just want to make sure we’re on the same page here, seeing as we’ve had _issues_ with that before.” His eyes flickered open as he lifted his head again to meet Hinata’s gaze evenly. Hinata was startled by the intensity he saw there. “Shouyou... I love you. Romantically and unconditionally. I’m _in_ love with you. I want to go on dates with you. I want you to be mine and only mine. I want--... I want this to work. I don’t want this to be just a fling. I need to know if you’re serious about this. Like-- Like I am. This is-- it’s real to me.”

Hinata stared back at him - their faces were barely just centimetres apart. Kageyama’s blue eyes were full of sincerity. Hinata could see every subtle movement in Kageyama’s face as they lay under the morning sunlight - the way that he drew his bottom lip in slightly to rest his teeth on it, an old nervous tic, the way his eyelashes fluttered when he blinked, the way his eyebrows were slowly knitting together in anticipation with a note of anxiety as he waited for Hinata’s answer. Hinata could feel himself getting choked up, and when his mouth fell open, he was almost worried that no sound would come out.

“W-we’re on the same page,” Hinata rasped once he was eventually able to connect the thoughts to his mouth. Kageyama’s face perked up, hopeful - Hinata knew this time not to leave him hanging. Finally, _finally_ \- he was free to speak his mind to his heart’s content. “It’s real for me too.” He swallowed back the hiccup in his throat - hadn’t they spent too much time crying over this already? “I love you too. And… I want the same things. Be mine too… T-Tobio.”

Kageyama let out a breath of relief, leaning his forehead down to rest against Hinata’s, and then laughed. Hinata laughed too when Kageyama’s bangs fell into his face, ticklish against his nose, the choked up feelings coexisting with his overwhelming happiness in that moment. He brought his hands forward to cup Kageyama’s cheeks softly. Slowly Kageyama leaned forward, before hesitating just millimetres from Hinata’s face. He looked almost apprehensive, Hinata thought, which was confirmed when he gulped audibly in the early morning quiet. Hinata figured he might as well meet him halfway - Kageyama had just put a lot out and on the line. He was far outside of his comfort zone, lost almost in his uncertainty and self-doubt, and Hinata thought it was about time he reached out to wrangle him back in - he could be the one to keep Kageyama’s heart safe from harm from now on. Whenever he was out on the line, Hinata wanted to be the pillar of stability that Kageyama could always count on to ground him.

Hinata closed the gap between them, meeting Kageyama’s lips with his own in a gentle kiss. It was just a simple touch of the lips more than anything, but they held it for a long moment, eyes both fluttering shut.

Kageyama was the first to pull back slightly, and Hinata’s eyes flickered open to meet deep blue ocean eyes staring back at him. Their faces hovered there for a moment, just staring back at one another, Hinata’s arms moving to wrap around Kageyama’s shoulders. Kageyama’s own arms rose slowly out from behind Hinata’s back. Hinata momentarily grieved their loss, but then Kageyama’s hands came to rest upon the sides of his face, thumbs moving to wipe at some wetness on his cheeks that Hinata hadn’t even known was there. Kageyama’s hands were so large that they felt like they were nearly able to wrap around his whole head, and they were so warm and _kind_ \- Hinata leaned into the touch eagerly. Who ever would have thought that snappy, grouchy Kageyama would be the one to care for him with such a tender and delicate hand? Kageyama moved back in, eyelids fluttering shut as he tilted his head further to the side to open his mouth slightly against Hinata’s own in a deeper kiss than the previous. He felt his heart leap into his throat and his stomach flip over again, just like it had last night - Hinata wasn’t sure he’d be getting used to this feeling anytime soon. The kiss was slow and leisurely, and just that, neither of them pushing for it to be anything more. It was just simple and sweet - tender and intimate, and everything that Hinata ever could have hoped for and more.

Their lips moved against each other carefully for a long time, only ever pausing for a few seconds at a time to catch their breath before leaning in again, morning breath be damned.

(It really wasn’t that bad at all, actually. Kageyama still tasted minty - Hinata just hoped that the same could be said about himself.)

Eventually, they did have to get up from the bed to begin the day. After that, things stayed the same more than they changed. They were still the best of friends, they’d just had an upgrade that came with kisses and unconditional love.

They won semi-finals in January and were carted off to nationals where they placed third. They hadn’t won, no, but they’d played a great game. Kageyama had been scouted and offered a full scholarship to a school in Tokyo.

Hinata had not.

So he had been right that they wouldn’t be going to the same schools. Four years was a long time to spend in a long distance relationship, but Hinata was adamant that he would always be there for Kageyama - despite the distance, Kageyama would never truly be alone. Besides, they’d still see each other a few times a year, would they not?

Still, seeing Kageyama off at the train station had been one of the hardest things Hinata had ever done, especially when they were in public and still nervous about displaying too many facets of their relationship. With Kageyama’s upbringing, it made sense that he would be anxious about what people would think of them.

Hinata had been accepted into a school much closer to home. Kageyama couldn’t keep pets where he was going, so Shou and Tobi were going to be staying with Hinata in his new apartment. The cats at least would be staying together; it was hard enough already that he and Kageyama were going to be separated. Tobi and Shou didn’t need to be split up, too. But it meant that Kageyama would be alone in Tokyo, away from all three of his most beloved friends. 

His _family_ , because sometimes a family was just two boyfriends and their cats.

Kageyama was clearly trying to hold himself together as best as he could, but Hinata could see right through him. Sitting together on a bench at the train station, Kageyama was gripping Hinata’s hand like a vice. He was scared, terrified even, and sad too. Part of him was excited, but it almost seemed that a bigger part of him didn’t want to go at all. 

They’d only had three months to spend together, so they’d tried to spend as much time in each other’s company as possible. They’d gone on a few sparse dates here and there, but mostly they’d done exactly what they’d always done, give or take an increase in kissing, cuddles, and… _other activities,_ even if they hadn’t exactly gone _all the way_ or anything close to it yet.

Still, Hinata had fond memories of secret sleepovers and time spent messing around under the sheets, be it the sheets of a bed or of a blanket fort that Hinata had convinced Kageyama to build with him one day. That memory was one of Hinata’s favourites - laying on top of soft pillows and blankets with his head pressed right up against a quietly purring Tobi, meanwhile Shou was stretched out halfway onto both Hinata and Kageyama, living the dream as he was showered with affection from his two favourite humans, purring drowning out all other noise. It hadn’t been long until the rhythmic sound had lulled the four of them all to sleep. They hadn’t gotten much done in the way of fooling around that day.

Hinata had needed to forcibly drag himself out of the memories and back to the present. It was easier to live in the past than face the future, but as Hinata glanced over to where Kageyama was sitting next to him, eyes seeming to gleam strangely in the light, he realized that it wasn’t fair of him to leave Kageyama to face his future alone. Hinata gave his hand a soft squeeze. Kageyama squeezed back.

So, Hinata invited Kageyama into the past with him for just a little while. They busied themselves talking about mundane things as they waited for the train’s approach - memories from when the cats were just kittens, their old teammates back at Karasuno, a nice little coffee shop they’d had lunch at just the previous week. But when the distant sound of the train horn had begun to blow closer and closer, and they could hear the sounds of the powerful engine approaching the platform, Hinata suddenly felt like there were a million more things that he still wanted to say to Kageyama before he left, but it was too late. They were out of time.

Kageyama looked up towards the train as it cruised into view, his face looking terribly distraught.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Kageyama wheezed.

“Don’t you dare! This is a momentous occasion, and there shall be no puking!” Hinata flashed back in his most playfully cheerful tone to hide how much he was feeling the same. “You’re gonna be great, Tobio. I promise,” he said softly, voice barely audible over the scream of the train’s brakes.

Kageyama stared back at him, eyes shimmering with tears. It was still strange to see such a tragic expression on Kageyama’s face - despite all they’d been through, tears were still rare.

“Shouyou.” Kageyama’s voice cracked when he spoke, just like Hinata’s heart. “I’m--...”

Hinata could tell what he was thinking just based on his face. Kageyama didn’t even need to say it out loud. Hinata _knew._

“Tobio - it’s okay. You can go. Just because we’ll be far apart for a while doesn’t mean I’m going to love you any less. I’ll still be here. No matter how long it takes, I’ll be here waiting for you.” Hinata smiled at him, one of his best and brightest smiles, even if it shook a little bit at the edges. There was a large part of him that was sad, devastated even, about having to part from his beloved right when they’d only just sorted out their feelings. They’d barely gotten off the ground and already the strength of their bond was about to be tested in one of the hardest ways that a relationship could be. But there was also a large part of Hinata that was just overwhelmingly happy for Kageyama, which he tried to focus on. “I’m proud of you. You’re an amazing person, Kageyama Tobio. I’m glad I got to meet you, and-- and I’m glad I got to love you, too.”

Kageyama hiccuped, but the tears didn’t fall - Kageyama was strong like that. “I’ll come back for you,” was all he was able to croak out.

“I know you will.” Hinata beamed up at him through watery eyes, but despite the heat behind his eyes, the smile was finally beginning to feel more genuine.

Passengers were beginning to enter the train cars. Kageyama looked over his shoulder, swearing under his breath as he began to dance back and forth on his feet, whipping his head to look around. Hinata was about to tell him to get a move on lest he miss the train, but then suddenly Kageyama had surged forward to grab Hinata on the sides of his face to pull him in for a kiss, to hell with it then. Hinata felt rather than saw the moment that Kageyama couldn’t keep the tears in any longer, the warm droplets dripping down onto Hinata’s cheeks. Hinata swallowed hard - he wasn’t going to cry too, _he wasn’t_. He needed to hold himself together for Kageyama’s sake. When he finally pulled away (far too soon), Kageyama grabbed Hinata’s hand, pushing something small and lightly weighted into his palm before closing Hinata’s fingers around the object with his own. There was a tiny but distinct crackling noise as Hinata held the object tighter in his grip.

Kageyama’s mouth opened to say something else, but then the train had blown its horn. He whipped his head around to look at it, before his eyes met Hinata’s again, eyes full of despair and swimming with a million questions. Hinata smiled at him one final time.

“Go,” Hinata choked out. “It’s okay.”

Kageyama’s mouth snapped shut with a click, biting his lip hard as he gave a terse nod. He turned around, luggage in hand, and ran to the train, looking back over his shoulder as he went.

It was only then that Hinata remembered the most important thing he’d wanted to say to Kageyama, just as he was slipping through the sliding door.

“I love you! Kageyama Tobio, _I love you!_ ” Hinata brought his hands up to his mouth to shout after him, unable to stop the words from just pouring out now that they’d begun. “Don’t you ever forget it! You better come back to me soon, you hear me Kageyama?! So get out there and be great!! I’ll be here! I promise you, I’ll be here when you get back! _This isn’t goodbye!_ ” The doors had long since shut, and Hinata was briefly worried that Kageyama wouldn’t have been able to hear him. 

But then from the train car, Kageyama turned to meet Hinata’s eyes through the window. He slowly blinked, tears escaping as he held his eyes closed for a long moment before opening them again. He repeated the motion several times until the train slowly began to chug forward, calling out to Hinata in return in the language of their cats.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Hinata blinked back at him as he waved his arms frantically, over and over and over again, even once Kageyama was long gone from sight. He couldn’t stop the tears that came then, blurring his vision, and every time he tried to blink them away, more would surge forward to fill their place.

Long after he had been left standing alone on the platform, Hinata felt free to finally let loose all of those tears that he’d been holding back. It wasn’t like he was never going to see Kageyama again, and hell, they had each other’s phone numbers - they could still talk whenever they wanted. They’d worked hard to build a relationship based on the foundations of open and thorough communication, and they weren’t going to lose it now. It wasn’t goodbye, it _wasn’t_ \- but it still hurt. It hurt _so much_.

After a long minute, the tears began to taper off and Hinata finally caught his breath. He brought up a fist to wipe at his nose, and-- 

Oh, that was right. Kageyama had placed something into his hands before he’d left, hadn’t he?

Looking down into his palm, Hinata found what probably had to be the tiniest little drawstring bag he had ever seen. Prying open the string gently, he peered in to be greeted by--

Hinata’s breath hitched in his throat.

Of course. _Of course._ Hinata couldn’t help the small little watery laugh that bubbled up and out of him, growing stronger and stronger as the seconds passed and he stared down at the gift.

The little fabric bag was filled to the brim with sunflower seeds. 

Hinata could still remember the way his heart had sunk seeing the sunflower he'd worked so hard to grow for Kageyama just standing there on its lonesome, shriveled and dead in the frigid winter air. Things had been so horrible then - they were still in the thick of their fight, and seeing the sunflower that Hinata and Kageyama had grown together in such a state had just made everything seem so much more agonizingly painful in the moment. But now, Hinata knew exactly where the little flower starts in his hand had come from.

Kageyama had harvested the seeds. He'd kept them all along - the sunflower may have died, as they only ever did last just the year, but that wasn’t the end of it, not truly. Going forward, there would be an unlimited number of sunflowers for the two of them to grow. No matter how many winters passed, spring would always come around again. 

The seeds that he was now holding in his palm were a wordless promise; Kageyama would come back to him in time. Even when they were so far apart, there would always be that promise of a brighter future that would arrive if given the patience and time to bear its fruit.

For whatever reason, this had Hinata all choked up all over again. Here he was, just crying over _sunflower seeds_ \- it was so absurdly simple. They were just seeds, but to Hinata, they meant so much more.

Staring at the fabric pouch in his hand, Hinata noticed a corner of a piece of paper sticking out. Gingerly, careful not to spill any of the bag’s contents, he pulled it out to find a folded up note. Unraveling the paper, he was greeted by the familiar sight of Kageyama’s handwriting.

_“I know you’ll take good care of them. Grow me another and we’ll plant it together soon. I love you. Wait for me.”_

On the back was the title of another song, a translation of its lyrics written hastily underneath. Hinata scrambled to unlock his phone and look it up. He began to walk - he’d been standing too long in the train station crying. People were beginning to stare. That was when he’d also received a text message - he didn’t need to look to know who it was from.

Plugging in his earbuds, Hinata walked home under the cherry blossoms, the song Kageyama had written out for him playing softly in his ears. He recognized it immediately - he’d heard it only once before on a hazy night they’d spent together back in January, walking home from a dinner late in the evening under a starry night sky. 

_I can’t stop these tears from falling._

_I used to go out at night_

_I used to go out each day_

_I used to go out and feel the sun on the silent day_

_So it's coming as quite a shock_

_A heart could come so undone_

_The strings could unravel fast_

_How quickly the war is won_

_And I can't stop these tears from falling_

_Right away I know you're calling_

_I can't stop these tears from falling now_

As some would say, the best memories were always the simple, easily forgotten moments, but now the buried memories came back to Hinata in full force. They’d been sharing earbuds that night as they walked when the song had started to play, cheerful and lovely and soft - Hinata hadn’t known what had come over him then, but he’d dragged Kageyama off the sidewalk and into a park, footsteps crunching through the frozen grass and snow. It dawned on him suddenly; overwhelmed by a sudden joy that he just couldn’t keep to himself, he beckoned Kageyama into his happiness with an outstretched hand and invited him to dance.

_If I was the thinking heart_

_And you were the loving soul_

_With all of my feelings sharp_

_You came crashing in my world_

_A music of cathedrals_

_Bouncing along the glass_

_It's echoing through my ears_

_You took it away so fast_

_And I can't stop these tears from falling_

_Right away I know you're calling_

_I can't stop these tears from falling now_

  
  


Kageyama had accepted only to humour him, but Hinata hadn’t missed the joyous little smile that was plastered across Kageyama’s face as they moved, hands clasped and fingers intertwined through their gloves, weaving back and forth to the tune that only they could hear. Neither of them could dance well at all, not even close, but they set their own sloppy rhythm together - swaying up and down, back and forth, Hinata jumping in place when he couldn’t otherwise figure out what to do with a bloom of laughter that just wouldn’t stop. As Hinata swung their arms up and down at inverse intervals, he’d met Kageyama’s eyes through a jubilant smile. And it was the look on Kageyama’s beautiful, remarkable face that had stolen his breath next. With features painted soft, Kageyama looked back at him like Hinata had hung the stars in the night sky and aligned them perfectly by hand, just for him; a face that cemented in Hinata’s heart that this right here was _exactly_ where they belonged, together hand in hand with one billion suns in the night sky smiling down upon them.

_Oh well_

_The lights are low_

_And I don't need a friend to call my own_

_'Cause I know it's the end_

_It's the end_

_And I can't stop these tears from falling now_

Opening up the text he’d received earlier, Hinata granted his full attention to the boy he loved more than anything else in the world, staring down at his phone through watery eyes with a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

Tobio

So are you free to call tonight?

END

\- ♠️ -

\- ♠️ -

FANART

Shou and Tobi by @ahazetothemaze on Instagram. Thank you! <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And just like that, it’s over!
> 
> The final song by Cigarettes After Sex is called I can’t stop these tears from falling. As usual, I recommend a listen! It’s sort of like a farewell to this story, marking its end. I hope this little tale sticks with you in some capacity, no matter how small. I'm so happy that our paths crossed long enough for me to share this story with you all. Go forth and be amazing! I love you all, and I truly mean that!
> 
> Hope you guys like the surprise art, too! Two of them are by me and then I had a wonderful lovely piece of fanart of the two kittens emailed to me from @ahazetothemaze on instagram which I just desperately had to show off, how could I not, it’s gorgeous!! Like holy cow I’m so in love please please go shower them in all the wonderful lovely praise because they deserve it. Look how cute little Shou is with his big beaming smile and little Tobi and UGH they look just like the boys too ;^;
> 
> As for my own art, I had an acquaintance who’s an illustrator redline and fix the anatomy for me. It’s more a collab that way because the only reason it looks so good (especially the cats holy cow, I mean look at them! I can’t draw a cat to save my life) is because of him. I almost felt bad defacing his beautiful anatomy with my scribbly line art. When I asked where I should credit him he said to keep it anonymous, and when I was like dude, why? He was like “I didn’t change much anyways so don’t worry about it.” o_o;; Too modest! I can’t just not credit him whatever he says, so everyone please give him a round of applause. ;m; It’s been so long since I drew, but you guys have just been inspiring me so much that I just had to go dig out my old tablet from the basement and let it all out. Enjoy the treat! Hope it doesn’t take away too much from the writing.
> 
> I’m curious what everyone’s thoughts have been. I’m really hoping I pulled off their conclusion well and resolved the fight cleanly. If anyone has any qualms then there’s always those sequels I’ve been working on. I was curious also to pursue a story from Kageyama’s point of view to explore some of his psychology and get his internal thought processes, and take a look at some of the previous scenes from his perspective in a character study. I’ve actually started it, but the problem is that it’s… extremely different in tone compared to this story, parts of it have gotten really dark to the point that I worry it would just be sort of heartbreaking to read after the fluffiness of this one. Like, the ending would still be obviously happy, but it might really be a hard read for some people. I’d wanted to try something really fluffy and tender for this story because on my home turf I’m usually a pretty heavy angst/hurt/comfort writer, but having a story so heavy on that in this series seems… I don’t know. Too drastic? :/ There’s a lot of beats in that one I’ve been developing that I really like in concept, but Haikyuu is such a lighthearted little franchise, so dragging it too far out of that fluffy bubble seems unkind. ^^;; I guess it sorta depends if you guys trust me enough that you’d be willing to follow me into my element as I put poor Kageyama through hell to get to all of the fluff and mental recovery on the other side. If you think I was able to pull off the recovery in this fic after these two’s big fight, I think I’ve got a fighting chance at making something worthwhile to read for Kageyama, but I need the feedback of readers to know. If you are interested in a darker tone fic like this please let me know! It would be directly followed by another extremely fluffy fic that needs the angsty one as a prerequisite for context to be more meaningful - both are actively in progress actually. If you’re willing to follow me to that point, I promise I’ll be good to you by the end. Do you trust me? :)
> 
> I could always write just a few shorter stories in this KageHina timeline, little rogue one-shots here and there. I thrive off of validation for sure, even if it’s just one dedicated person that’s enough for me really, so tell me what you think, and I might consider it if I can come up with enough ideas to make something worthwhile to read. I had a blast writing this story, so honestly, no matter what I’m gonna write more! I’m just nervous honestly, I can be pretty hard on myself which is why I otherwise have never really posted much. You guys have made me want to write more than I ever have in my life though, so for that, thank you!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read my story, and huge thanks to the people who have left comments, it really does mean the world to me. Even something short and simple really really makes my day. ;__; You’ve all been so lovely - thanks for sticking with me! 
> 
> I’m always down to answer questions about my fics, too, if there’s anything you wanna know. Maybe our paths will cross again, but until then, seeya later!
> 
> \-- Marshal “Mo” ♥


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